


The Coven of Reformed Supernaturals

by Marcus_S_Lazarus



Series: The Coven of Reformed Supernaturals [1]
Category: Angel: the Series, Batman & Dracula: Red Rain, Blade (Movie Series), Charmed (TV 1998), Constantine (2005), Hellboy (Movies 2004-2008)
Genre: Past VS Future, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 17
Words: 43,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23609293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marcus_S_Lazarus/pseuds/Marcus_S_Lazarus
Summary: In the aftermath of the 'Not Fade Away' battle, Angel, Spike and Illyria are recruited by the Elders to fight as part of a unique team against a foe that has captured the Charmed Ones... a foe that at least one of their new allies knows VERY well...
Series: The Coven of Reformed Supernaturals [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1699387
Kudos: 4





	1. Unexpected Assistance

**Author's Note:**

> For Angel and Co. this is set just about half an hour after the end of ‘Not Fade Away’

Angel couldn’t be sure how long he’d been fighting anymore. He felt like the whole world had become nothing more or less then a mad, rampaging swirl of violence, demon after demon charging at him, Spike and Illyria.

He vaguely recalled seeing Gunn collapse after decapitating a particularly large and ugly demon, but that aside, the only really memorable thing about the fight was when he’d managed to decapitate that dragon that had been annoying him. Illyria and Spike were still standing, but he’d lost sight of them after the dragon had collapsed; he wasn’t even sure if they were still standing anymore.

Roaring with rage, he took a desperate swipe at something in front of him that vaguely resembled a Gorgon from Greek myth, except that it was more muscular and had scorpion-like claws rather then hands. The blow sliced off some of the snakes on its head before it grabbed his sword in one claw, subsequently swinging the other claw towards his head, in a blow that looked almost guaranteed to take his head off…

And then a massive red, stone fist struck the Gorgon lookalike in the head and knocked it back into a nearby wall, leaving Angel staring at where it had been, his sword still clutched in one hand.

“What…?” he said, confused.

“That would be me,” a deep, rough voice said from off to the side.

Angel looked in the direction of the voice…

And stared in amazement.

It was a large figure, a fair few inches higher then a normal human, and evidently a great deal more muscular. It- no, he, Angel corrected himself almost automatically- had red skin and thick black sideburns, with two wide circle-like things on his forehead that looked almost like stumps. He was dressed in a long brown coat, a black shirt and trousers, and was carrying a large gun in his left hand.

However, despite all this, Angel’s eyes were mainly drawn to the right hand. It was almost twice the size of the left, and appeared to be literally _made_ of rock, of a similar red colour to the rest of the figure, that stretched up to the elbow and almost resembled a glove. The hand looked like it could deliver a great deal of damage in a fight, and something told Angel he wouldn’t want to receive it.

“Um… who are you?” Angel asked, looking at the figure curiously.

“Name’s Hellboy,” the demon said, as he raised his gun and checked it for bullets. “Some higher power guys- think they’re called ‘the Elders’ or something like that- sent me here to help you guys out.” Then he smiled at something behind Angel. “Ah, and there’s the others.”

“ _Others_?” Angel said in surprise, as he spun around to see what Hellboy was looking at. To his surprise, there were three other figures suddenly standing behind him struggling with the demons as they charged towards him, Hellboy, and (He hoped) Spike and Illyria…

As soon as that thought had crossed his mind, he turned back to look at Hellboy.

“What about my friends?” he said. “Illyria, and Spike? Are they still alive?”

“Yeah, they’re good; they’re just trying to take out a couple of golems the Partners hit ‘em with,” Hellboy said, as he raised his gun.

“I’ll get them out of that, don’t you worry,” he said, grinning over at Angel as he indicated the weapon in his hand. “I’m not the best shot, but the Samaritan here fires really big bullets; I should be able to stop those lumps of rock soon enough.”

Angel opened his mouth to protest, but shut it again almost instantly. He’d encountered few golems in his lifetime, but in every fight he’d had with them, he’d never managed to do much damage to them; even at his age, he couldn’t do much damage to solid rock.

Hellboy, on the other hand… well, if that fist couldn’t shatter the golems, he’d be stuck for ideas. Besides, there was something about this guy that made Angel trust him, even if they’d only known each other for a few minutes at most.

Almost a sense of… _recognition_ , he guessed he could call it.

“All right then,” he said, raising his sword. “But get them out alive, OK? I may have lost Gunn; I’m not losing anyone else.”

Hellboy nodded, and then dived into the mass of demons, charging (Angel assumed) towards where Spike and Illyria might be.

Angel watched him go, and then raised his sword and charged towards the demons that the other three figures were fighting. He didn’t pretend he knew what was happening right now- he didn’t even know what Hellboy and these others were _doing_ here- but he couldn’t just stand by and let them get slaughtered.

Right now, until further notice, he was going to consider them reliable allies, and try to act as such until they’d proved themselves otherwise.

* * *

  
As Hellboy charged through the army of demons, knocking them aside but hardly out, he desperately kept an eye out for the two he was looking for. He couldn’t be sure where anyone was- those Elder guys hadn’t exactly been very forthcoming- but they’d given him and the others basic descriptions of the two vampires and the ex-demon queen, and he should be able to spot peroxide-coloured hair fairly easily…

There it was.

Glancing over in the direction of the hair, Hellboy smiled in satisfaction as his eyes fell on two figures that could only be Spike and Illyria. Spike’s neck was clasped in a golem’s thick hand while he desperately kicked out at its head, while Illyria tried to fight with another golem, despite her slighter bulk putting her at a definite disadvantage.

Hellboy smirked, raised the Samaritan, and fired a couple of bullets at the golem holding Spike up. The bullets shattered the creature’s head, leaving it standing there like the statue it should be, and then it fell apart, leaving Spike lying on the ground staring up into the rain, his throat red and sore from the golem’s grasp. Hellboy didn’t even stop to introduce himself to the vampire; he just charged forward, shoved Illyria aside as the golem threw another blow at her head, and grabbed the fist in his other hand.

“Bad manners,” Hellboy grunted at the golem, as he drew his stone hand back. “Basic chivalry; don’t hit women!”

Launching his fist forward, Hellboy tore right through the golem’s chest, leaving a massive gaping in its stomach, following it up by quickly yanking his hand out, grabbing the thing’s head, and crushing it like so much powder.

He looked down at it, shrugged, and turned to look at Illyria. “You OK?” he asked her, as he slid his gun back into its holster and crouched down on the ground, offering her his hand.

She waved it aside as she got up. “I am well, thank you…” she said, looking at him for a few seconds before continuing with, “Amung-un-”

Hellboy clamped his hand over her mouth, his eyes almost gleaming with fury.

“Don’t say that name,” he said, growling. “I don’t like it, I don’t want it, and the effects of me saying it are not pleasant, so don’t tempt me. Got it?”

Illyria nodded. Hellboy took the hand off her mouth and looked over at Spike.

“You OK, Will?” he asked, holding out his hand again. This time, it was accepted, and Hellboy hauled the collapsed vampire back onto his feet, Spike taking his hand back afterwards.

“Yeah, I’m good, thanks,” he said, as he looked over Hellboy. “And who the bloody hell are you, Red?”

“Call me Hellboy,” Hellboy replied, jerking his head towards Spike’s axe. “Now, get that up and help out; we’ve still got an army on our backs.”

Spike smiled. “Right!” he said, grabbing a nearby axe that he must have dropped earlier and charging back into the fight.

Hellboy rolled his eyes and looked over at Illyria. “Is he always like that?”

“Indeed,” Illyria said, looking over at Hellboy. “Spike is a true warrior; a worthy champion for these people. Much like his… ‘sire’, correct?” she asked, looking over at Hellboy.

Hellboy shrugged. “Hey, I’m just the guy who kills the things,” he said pulling his gun back out. “You want the 411 on vamps, remind me to introduce you to Abe Sapien someday.” Then he grinned and jerked his head towards the army in front of them, some of whom were now turning towards the two demons. “Right now, we’ve got some ass to kick.”

Illyria smiled.

“Good,” she said simply.

The two of them charged at the vast army, fists flying as they launched blow after blow at their new adversaries.

* * *

  
“There’s too many of them!” somebody yelled from beside Angel as he slashed against and again at the demons before him. Angel hadn’t even had the chance to see who these others were; he’d just charged blindly at the demons and started to attack, not even looking sideways once.

“Just hold on, Blade!” another voice said, that sounded like its owner was under a bit of strain in the fight. “The Elders should be finished soon!”

“ _Easy for you to say, Leo; **you** can get out of here easily enough if the need arises_!” a third voice cried. Angel raised a curious eyebrow to himself as he listened to the voice; it sounded like the throat that it came from had been damaged in some way…

Then every demon around them vanished, and Angel fell to the ground as his sword failed to make contact with anything.

“ _BOLLOCKS_!” somebody yelled from somewhere behind him. Despite the sharp pain in his shoulder from where he’d fallen on it, Angel grinned; evidently Spike had fallen down as well. At least _he_ was still alive…

Rolling onto his back, his eyes briefly shut against the rain, Angel sat up and looked around the alley for his friends. Spike and Illyria were still standing, he was relieved to see, but Gunn…

His eyes fell on a still body in the middle of the alley.

“Oh no…” Angel said, getting up and running over to the body.

Crouching down, he rolled the body over onto its back, and stared at Gunn’s face as he looked blankly up at the sky, his hooded top and T-shirt stained with blood and covered in various deep cuts; Angel was pretty sure he could see Gunn’s _heart_ …

Angel sighed and, his hand over Gunn’s face, slowly closed his friend’s eyes for the final time.

He looked at Gunn for a few seconds more, and then smiled.

“Thank you,” he said simply. “It was good to have a friend like you.”

Then he stood up and turned to look back at the others. Spike and Illyria were standing right behind him, looking at Gunn’s body.

* * *

  
Illyria looked up at Angel.

“He has fallen?” she said to the vampire.

Angel nodded.

Illyria sighed and looked down at Gunn, before looking over at her two… friends? It had been so long since she had ever looked at others as anything other than servants… once again.

“It is not right that he should have fallen,” she said to them. “I wish to cause more pain.”

“Well, you’ll be getting that chance,” a voice said from behind the three of them.

* * *

  
Angel, Spike and Illyria looked over at their other three saviours…And stared in amazement.

The first figure was a tall black man, dressed in a dark leather coat and trousers and a sleeveless black vest, with a long, gleaming sword in his hands. He was wearing black shades that totally concealed his eyes from view, and had long spindly tattoos that stretched from his neck to down below the vest and presumably along his chest.

The second figure was the most remarkable, mainly because all three of the gang knew his appearance well (Even if, in Illyria’s case, the memories were second-hand). His limbs appeared a great deal thinner then they normally appeared to be in the comics, and his face and chest looked slightly decayed, with sharp white teeth very prominently displayed, but other then that, he looked exactly like….

“Batman?” Spike and Illyria said in confusion.

The man in question shrugged.

“ _Close_ ,” he said, looking at them with eyes that gleamed a deep, forbidding red in their hollowed sockets, “ _but I am far more than that now_.”

However, Angel’s attention was immediately drawn to the third man. He was about Angel’s height, with dark blond hair and a handsome face, dressed in a dark blue shirt and jeans, and generally looked rather unremarkable, but Angel knew him well enough.

“ _Leo_!” he said, sounding very shocked.

The man smiled. “Hello, Angel,” he said.

Spike and Illyria looked at each other inquiringly, before turning to Angel and Leo.

“You two know each other?” Spike said, looking at the two of them curiously.

“Oh, yeah,” Leo said, looking over at Spike. “Angel helped me out a bit in the Battle of Gaudalcanal; helped me get some soldiers out of harm’s way, and…” He sighed and looked over at Angel.

Angel took up the story, looking over at Spike. “I stayed with Leo after he got hit by a bomb.”

“Eh?” Spike said, looking at the two men in confusion. “What do you mean; is this guy a soddin’ vampire?”

Leo smiled. “I’m hardly anything that simple, Spike,” he said, before turning to Angel. “I’ll explain later, I promise, but right now, we need your help.”

“Really?” Angel said, looking at Leo curiously. “What kind of help?”

“Oh, your usual kind,” Leo replied casually. “Demons threaten humanity, innocent lives are at stake, and the fate of the world is on your shoulders. Are you interested?”

He held out a hand.

Angel smiled and shook it.

“Where do we begin?” he asked casually.


	2. Histories in Shades of Grey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Blade, this is set in between ‘Blade II’ and ‘Blade: Trinity’. For Leo, this is set in between ‘Sense and Sense Ability’ and ‘Oh My Goddess’, so he’s still just a Whitelighter, Wyatt’s been born, Cole’s been vanquished, and there’s no sign of Chris

“Hold on a bloody moment,” Spike said, causing Leo and Angel to break the handshake and look over curiously at the blond vampire. “I’m not going anywhere until you answer a few questions.”

“Ask away,” Leo smiled, turning to face Spike.

“In order; what the bloody hell happened to the demon army, why the bloody hell did you guys help us, and, more specifically, _who the bloody hell is the Batman lookalike!_ ” Spike yelled, pointing at the aforementioned Dark Knight at the last statement.

Leo sighed. “I’d like to explain that, Spike, but right now we need to get out of here,” he said. “You know evil better then most of us; it can’t always be guaranteed that they’ll keep their word. If you don’t come with us now, there’s no guarantee the army won’t be back.”

Spike looked over at Angel curiously. “Was he always like this?” he asked his grandsire, indicating Leo.

Angel shrugged. “He always got to the point when treating injured men, I know that,” he said, before turning back to Leo. “Sorry about Spike; he’s still fairly new to the ‘champion’ business. We’re in, I’m sure.” He looked over at Illyria and held out one hand. “Are you coming?”

Illyria looked at the hand for a few seconds, and then took it.

She looked at Angel.

“If there will be demons at the end of this journey, I am with you,” she said. “Pain must be caused for the deaths of Wesley and Charles.”

Angel smiled briefly at her, and then turned to look over at Spike.

“You coming?” he asked his childe.

Spike looked at the hand Illyria had offered to him, sighed, and took it.He looked over at Leo.

“I’ll want answers,” he said simply.

Leo nodded briefly at Spike, and then looked back at Blade, Hellboy, and ‘Batman’. They seemed to understand what he meant, and Blade and ‘Batman’ placed their hands on Leo’s shoulders, while Hellboy placed his hands on their shoulders. As soon as it was done, Leo closed his eyes and briefly concentrated…

* * *

  
And suddenly, the small group found themselves in a massive, bright white room, that vaguely reminded Angel of the room in Wolfram & Hart where he met with the Conduit, facing a tall man with a moustache and a small goatee, dressed in a black, Victorian-style business suit.

“Ah, Leo,” he said, smiling at the former medic, before looking over at Angel, Spike and Illyria. “I assume these are the other three members of our Coven?”

“Yes, they are; Angel and Spike, the vampires with souls, and Illyria, the former demon king,” Leo said, indicating the three of them as he spoke, before turning his attention back to the Victorian-clad man. “Is Wyatt safe?”

“Oh, he’s fine,” the man smiled. “As you suggested, we left him with Ava and set up various protective wards; only Elders or Whitelighters can get in there now.”

Leo sighed. “That’s something…” he said, apparently not addressing that comment to anyone in particular.

“Excuse me… ‘Coven’?” Angel said, looking curiously at the man as he broke contact with Leo and Illyria, trying to focus on the first part of the conversation he hadn’t understood. “What do you mean, ‘Coven’? Who are you?”

“Oh, forgive me,” the man said, smiling at Angel. “My name is Gideon, and I am the Elder responsible for the creation of your little group, which I call ‘the Coven of Reformed Supernaturals’.”

“The Coven of what?” Illyria asked, looking at Gideon curiously.

“Reformed Supernaturals,” Gideon smiled. “I thought it suited your gathering; after all, it is the reason why you were all selected for this team. You are all reformed supernatural beings that were practically created for evil, but have become good due to various outside circumstances.”

Then he looked over at ‘Batman’ and Illyria, and shrugged. “Of course, a couple of you are a bit less ‘reformed’ then we’d like, but we trust your fighting instincts at any rate; you won’t turn on us, and that’s all that matters.”

Sighing, he looked over at Leo. “I’ll go and tell our various gatherings to start on the spell for the last member; in the meantime, you can explain the crisis to the others.”

The he turned around and walked out of the room, leaving the rest of the Coven looking curiously at Leo.

Eventually, the dark-skinned Blade broke the silence. “Well, guess we’d better get started,” he said bluntly, looking around at the others. “I’ll begin; my name’s Blade, and I’m…” he briefly stopped and hesitated, as though reluctant to finish his sentence, before he finally continued. “I’m a half-vampire.”

Angel blinked in surprise. “You’re _what_!” he said, looking sharply over in Blade’s direction. “How’s that possible?”

“Not at all, with your vampires,” Blade explained. “However, I’m not your kind of vampire; I’m from another reality.”

“You mean… like an alternate universe?” Angel asked, looking at Blade curiously.

“Exactly,” Blade said, nodding briefly in Angel’s direction before continuing. “Basically, my mother was bitten by a vampire while she was in the ninth month of her pregnancy. She was turned straight away, but somehow, in my case, the vampire DNA bonded cleanly with my human cells rather then just replacing them. As a result, I’ve got all the strengths of a vampire from my world, but none of the weakness; I can walk in the daylight, sunlight doesn’t affect me, and garlic’s just a bad smell to me. I’ve spent my life hunting vampires, with the aid of Whistler, a technological expert who’s fought vampires ever since vampires murdered his family.”

“I see…” Angel said, nodding at Blade curiously. “So, what are you doing here?”

Blade sighed. “The Elders promised to help me out with a little problem of mine,” he said. “Something from the vampire part of me.”

“Ah,” Angel said, nodding in understanding. “The thirst?”

Blade just nodded.

* * *

  
“Um, excuse me,” Spike said, raising one inquiring hand. “Not meaning to break up this bonding moment, but you _still haven’t answered my earlier goddamn questions_!”

Leo smiled sheepishly as he looked over at the bleach-haired vampire. “Sorry about that, Spike,” he said. “To answer them in order, the first one’s the easiest; the Elders needed your assistance, so they managed to persuade the Senior Partners to recall the demon army if you helped us with this crisis.” Noting Spike’s incredulous reaction, he just shrugged. “Believe me, it’s a serious problem we’ve got at the moment; the Partners want it dealt with as much as the Elders do. As to the question of why we helped you… well, Gideon already partly covered that one, and I’ll explain the rest a bit later. And as for your third…” He looked over at the lookalike. “Bruce, do you want me to tell him?”

‘Batman’ shook his head. “ _No, Leo…_ ” he replied, hoarsely, as though the mere thought of what he was to say caused him pain. “ _I shall tell him myself_.”

He looked over at Spike. “ _If you really wish to know the truth about me, ‘Spike’, it’s simple_ ,” he began to explain.“ _I am not a ‘lookalike’ of Batman, but an alternate version of the Batman you know of. I understand he is still human_?” he added, looking over at Angel.

Angel nodded, still looking a bit confused. “Um… are you saying that all the DC comics stories actually _exist_ , or have I lost track somewhere along the line?” he said, looking between ‘Batman’ and Leo for confirmation.

Leo nodded. “Pretty much exactly what he meant, Angel,” Leo said, smiling at his old friend. “It’s the same all over; most realities are just created by a writer creating a little ‘pocket universe’ for their own stories. Marvel comics, the James Bond movies… all those characters actually exist, somewhere out there in the vastness of the multiverse.” Then he jerked a thumb over at ‘Batman’. “He just came from a ‘sub-reality’ linked up to the main DC universe, if you will.”

“Ah,” Angel said, looking back at ‘Batman’. “So, what happened to you?”

“ _Dracula_ ,” Batman said simply.

“WHAT!” Spike and Angel yelled simultaneously, followed closely by Blade and Hellboy; Leo already knew Batman’s story, and Illyria didn’t know who Dracula was.

“ _Yes, I know_ ,” Batman said, sighing slightly. “ _I still don’t quite believe it myself…_ ” He shook his head and continued.

* * *

  
(AN: The following information is taken from the ‘Vampire Batman’ Elseworld trilogy, which covers ‘Batman versus Dracula: Red Rain’, ‘Batman: Bloodstorm’, and ‘Batman: Crimson Mist’- except for the bit with the Elders, naturally.)

* * *

  
“ _Anyway, I first encountered Dracula when I was investigating a series of murders where the victim’s throat was slashed after death; I believed it to be a mere serial killer, but it was actually Dracula and his horde, tearing the victim’s throats to hide the bite marks and attract less attention_.

“ _With the aid of Tanya, a former member of Dracula’s cult who had regained her humanity, I was gifted with all the strengths of a vampire, using them to confront Dracula in a mid-air battle after Tanya and her fellows had given their lives to stop Dracula’s followers, and staked Dracula on a broken tree…_ ”

He sighed, and reached up to his neck, a thoughtful expression on his face. “ _But the price was high_ …”

“Dracula finished your transformation, huh?” Hellboy asked, looking at the vampire with a sympathetic expression. “Sorry to hear that.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” Batman said, looking over at Hellboy. “ _However, at first it was not that much of a problem; a serum Tanya had developed helped me keep my bloodlust under control, and I used my vampire powers to hunt down the last survivors of Dracula’s horde, now led by my old foe, the Joker_.”

“The Joker?” Angel said, looking at Batman in surprise. “He was a vampire in your world?”

“ _No; just human_ ,” Batman explained. “ _They needed a leader now that Dracula was dead, and he was the only one mad enough to take the job. I destroyed his forces, but then, in a fit of rage_ …”

He sighed deeply, his expression now a curious mix of self-longing and pleasure. “ _I fed on him_.”

None of the other members of the Coven could speak; everyone there knew of Batman’s high regard for life in the comics, and knew that they couldn’t say anything to the former Dark Knight Detective that wouldn’t make him feel worse.

“ _I fled back to my house, and had my friends, Commisioner Gordon and Alfred Pennyworth, stake me in order to insure I could threaten no innocents_ ,” Batman continued, after a moment’s pause. “ _However, when Gotham was in the grip of a massive crime wave, Alfred removed the stake- which hadn’t killed me, as I must have my head removed as well to truly die-, unleashing me on the criminals of Gotham. Half-mad after my time frozen between life and death, and plagued now by the thirst, I drained and decapitated all of Gotham’s criminals, until only Two-Face, Killer Croc, and their small gang were left, forging an alliance with Gordon and Alfred to kill me for good_.

“ _In the resulting battle, in the ruins of what was once my cave, Alfred gave his life to give me the strength to stop Killer Croc and Two-Face, leaving only Gordon to stop me. Triggering bombs planted in the cave roof, he let in the sunlight- the only thing that could definitely kill me-, but was crushed by the falling rubble as I prepared to walk into the day. Then…”_

He sighed. “ _Then the Elders dragged me here. They told me that they could help me move on to the peace I ‘deserved’ if I helped them deal with this current crisis that has brought us all together_.” He shrugged. “ _And that is my history. I doubt I can truly achieve redemption for my crimes, but I am prepared to try, at the very least. If I must die, let me die doing what I dedicated my life to doing; helping others_.”

Angel simply nodded. “Commendable,” he said simply. Then he looked around. “My turn?” he asked the others, ignoring Spike and Illyria for obvious reasons. Blade, Hellboy, and Batman nodded. “OK. Long story short, I was originally a normal vampire, but killed the favoured daughter of a clan of gypsies, so they made me suffer by cursing me with my soul. As a result, I was forced to live with the guilt of everything my vampire self had done, and spent a few decades trying to deal with the grief before I finally began to use my vampire abilities to fight the good fight.”

Angel looked over at Spike, and raised a quizzical eyebrow. Spike understood and stood up.

“Me, I’m a bit more basic,” he said, looking around at the others. “Like Peaches over there, I was a pretty dangerous vampire in my heyday, but then I got a chip stuck in my head that stopped me hurting humans. Since I could still hurt demons, I started fighting them to have something to hit.” He shrugged. “Got landed with a soul a while back, and I’ve been fighting with Angel’s team ever since.”

He jerked a thumb back at Illyria. “Blue here, she’s a bit more interesting; former demon king who got stuck in our friend’s body while trying to make a comeback. She found that her army had been destroyed, decided to stick around, and basically just fights with us for something to do.”

Illyria growled. “Do not presume to speak for me, half-breed,” she said simply.

Spike looked back at her and shrugged. “Well, no offence Blue, but if you told the story we’d probably be here for ages just waiting for you to stop ranting about your former greatness,” he said casually. “Figured it’d be best to just get it over and down with.”

Illyria looked like she about to say something, but Hellboy raised one stone finger in an interjecting gesture, drawing attention over to him.

“Well,” Hellboy said, after making sure he had everybody’s attention, “now that everyone else is done, I’ll just give my story; summoned by the Nazis in 1944 as a baby, rescued by an American platoon, joined a special bureau set up to fight demons, and I’ve been tackling them ever since.” He shrugged. “Sometimes, all you need is the right upbringing.”

Illyria looked at him curiously. “So that is why you do not wish your name to be spoken?” she asked him. “You have spent so much time among this species that you wish to forget your past?”

“Forget?” Hellboy said, chuckling slightly. “Lady, I never even _knew_ my past; I was practically just born when I was summoned!” He smiled slightly, as though at some partly fond memory. “I just prefer to not think of what I might have been, and focus on what I actually am.”

Blade nodded thoughtfully. “Good philosophy,” he said, looking over at Hellboy. “I’ve tried to do that sometimes myself.”

“‘Tried’?” Angel asked, looking over at Blade curiously.

Blade looked up at him, as though surprised that the other vampire had to ask. “I find it hard to forget my vampire nature when I still have the Thirst to deal with.”

* * *

  
Angel blinked and briefly appeared to be mentally scolding himself for forgetting that, but then just turned around to look back at Leo. “So, what’s the situation we’re dealing with here?” he asked his old friend, trying to sound as though the idea of seeing Leo alive after all this time wasn’t more then slightly disturbing to him. After all, he’d _seen_ Leo die…

Leo smiled slightly and glanced down at his watch before looking back at Angel. “I’ll tell you in a moment,” he said to his friend. “We’ve just got to wait a moment or two for the last member of our Coven to get here.”

“What?” Spike said, looking over at Leo in surprise. “ _Another_ one? We’ve already got _three_ vampires, a vampire/human hybrid, two demons, _and_ a… whatever the hell you are!” he said, waving a hand around the room at the others. “What else do we need!”

A bolt of lighting struck the middle of the room, between where Hellboy and Spike were standing, accompanied by a blinding flash of white light. When the light had cleared, a tall figure, clad in a simple black outfit, was standing there. He had red hands, black marks on a similarly red face, and his head was totally hairless.

Dazed, he looked around at his new surroundings.

“Where the hell am…” he began, before his eyes fell on Leo.

His jaw dropped. “ _Leo_!”

Leo smiled slightly. “Hello, Cole,” he said casually.

Then he raised a quizzical eyebrow. “You know, I never asked; do you prefer Belthazor when you’re like this?”


	3. From Hell and the Past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Cole, this can be set pretty much anywhere between ‘Charmed Again, Part Two’ and ‘Black as Cole’; all that matters is that, back when he comes from, he’s still Belthazor, Prue’s dead, and Paige is around.

Cole, or Belthazor, or whoever he was, blinked and, right in front of the Coven, changed into a human form before their eyes. Now he was a tall, fairly handsome human with a high forehead, dressed in a long brown leather coat, dark trousers, and a slightly dulled long-sleeved white T-shirt.

He walked over to Leo, looking him in the eyes with a slightly angered expression.

“What the hell is going on here?” he asked the former army medic. “Who are these guys, and what are you doing here?”

* * *

  
Leo shook his head in a slightly melancholy manner as he looked at his old friend. “Where you are is fairly simple, Cole,” he said, trying not to let any emotions across as he spoke. “You’re in the future. I’m not the Leo you know, but the Leo from this time; it’s almost two years away from your present.”

Cole blinked in surprise.

“W…what?” he said, looking at Leo in confusion. “What do you mean, I’m two years in the future?”

“What I said, Cole,” Leo said, sighing as he looked at his friend. “Believe me, I wish I didn’t have to involve you in this; the energy involved in drawing you here was difficult enough to gather on its own. But…” He sighed, and stared Cole directly in the eyes once again. “We need your help.”

“With what?” Cole asked, looking more then a little nervous now. “What’s wrong? Why can’t my present self help you?” Then, as though he’d only just realised something, he grabbed Leo’s shirt, yanked him forward until the two were almost nose-to-nose, and yelled at him, “ _And where’s PHOEBE_!”

“Phoebe?” Spike said, looking at Cole in confusion. “Who the bloody hell is Phoebe?”

“My sister-in-law and, technically, his wife,” Leo said, indicating Cole.

Cole’s jaw dropped at that statement. Releasing Leo, he stared at the Whitelighter in blank amazement.

“My… my _wife_!” he said, sounding more than slightly shaken at that statement.

“Yeah, your wife,” Leo said, “Shortly in your future, you’ll become human when a witch whose fiancé was killed by Belthazor tries to vanquish you using the wrong potion; your Belthazor aspect and powers are taken from you, and you ended up getting married to Phoebe.”

“Ah,” Cole said, still sounding a bit uncertain about the whole thing. “So, that’s why _I’m_ here rather than my other self? Because I’m human in the present, and you need my help for… something?”

Leo nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Believe me, we wouldn’t have gotten you involved if we had an alternative, but you’re the only ‘Reformed Supernatural’ with your kind of powers that we could find.” He held out a hand towards Cole. “Are you interested?”

Cole took the hand and shook it.

“You know me, Leo; always up for a scrap,” he said. “Tell me where the bad guy is, and he’s going down.”

* * *

  
(AN: I acknowledge that Leo has passed over some very MAJOR aspects of the past year or so for Cole (The Source, the Wasteland, his being indestructible, yadda yadda yadda) but, believe me, there’s a reason for all that, _besides_ the obvious factors…)

* * *

  
“On that topic, what is it with this bad guy that these ‘Elders’ have gathered us together to fight him?” Blade asked, looking over at Leo. “Wouldn’t they be more comfortable using ‘genuine’ good guys rather than a bunch of reformed bad guys?”

“Believe me, Blade, they’re not keen on this idea even now, but they have a reason for it,” Leo began to explain, turning to look at the dark-skinned hybrid. “You see-”

Just before he could continue, Hellboy pulled out his gun and looked curiously around himself, while Cole suddenly shifted into Belthazor and raised one hand as an energy ball appeared in it.

“ _What?_ ” Batman asked, looking curiously at the others. “ _What’s wrong?_ ”

“Something’s coming,” Belthazor replied, looking curiously around himself. “I don’t know what, but it…” He sniffed. “… _stinks_ of Hell…”

* * *

  
“Oh, they got him,” Leo said, smiling in relief. “That’s something; the more the merrier, after all.”

“What?” Spike said, looking over at Leo incredulously. “Your bosses summoned a guy who’s been to _Hell_!”

Leo sighed and looked over at Spike. “You’ve been working with someone who’s done that for the last year, Spike; is it really such an unusual thing for you?”

Angel nodded. “He’s right, you know, Spike,” he said, looking over at his childe. “You’ve never shown much bother about my brief stint in Hell; is having to work with someone else who’s been there that much to ask?”

“Well, it’s hardly the same thing, is it, Peaches?” Spike yelled, turning to face the other ensouled vampire. “You got dragged there through a bloody portal; you weren’t sent there simply because some higher power decided you deserved it! We don’t even know _what_ this guy did to get himself sent there!”

“I killed myself,” a voice said from behind them.

Spinning around, the Coven found themselves facing a rather unexpected figure. He was fairly tall, ruggedly handsome in a sense, with dark hair and dressed in what almost looked like a business suit; black trousers, black coat, black tie, and a slightly stained white shirt.

He held a strange-looking gun in one hand that looked like a combination of a crucifix and a machine-gun, and the bulges in his pockets suggested that he had more artefacts in them as well as what they could see.

The man smiled slightly at them all, slung the gun back over his shoulder, and held out his hand to the nearest member of the Coven- Blade.

“John Constantine,” he said casually to the hybrid. “Sorry I’m late; the Elders told me that transporting me from such a radically different universe would take a while, but I wasn’t expecting it to be _that_ long.”

* * *

  
(AN: To all those Constantine fans out there, I wish to apologise for any offence I may cause by using the movie version; I’ve never read the comics myself, but, after seeing the movie with my father, I decided that the guy was too good a candidate for involvement in the Coven to pass up)

* * *

  
Blade uncertainly took the offered hand and shook it, all the while looking at Constantine with his curiosity evident on his face.

“So… what are you, if you don’t mind my asking?” he said bluntly.

Constantine sighed. “That’s complicated,” he said, looking at Blade finally. “The Elders gave me a bit of a briefing on the rest of you while I was ‘in transit’- a vampire/human hybrid, two vampires with souls, a former Old One, a demon, a former assassin, and a Whitelighter, right?”

The Coven nodded, and Constantine continued. “Well, I’m more complicated than any of you; in my world, God and the Devil made a wager for the souls of mankind, centuries in the past. As a result, they, and their followers, cannot travel onto our plane of existence, but ‘half-breeds’- demons or angels with some humanity within them- could influence men’s actions to a certain degree, driving them towards Heaven or Hell.

“I, along with a few others on my world, can see these half-breeds, but I could barely cope with it. When I was a teenager, I tried to commit suicide and briefly died, but was resuscitated after about two minutes…”He sighed. “But, for me, that was nearly an eternity.”

“You saw Hell, huh?” Belthazor asked, finally lowering his hand and turning back into Cole.

Constantine nodded. “And, knowing I was destined to end up there again, I tried to buy my way out by exorcising demons from this realm. But, no matter how many I took down, I couldn’t get in there; everything I’d done had, at heart, been done for myself, not for others.”

Sighing, he looked down at his gun briefly, and then continued. “I eventually became involved with helping a police detective, Angela Dodson, who could also see the angels and demons of our world, investigate the apparent suicide of her twin sister. We discovered that it was all part of a plot by the angel Gabriel to bring Hell to Earth by awakening the Antichrist using the Spear of Destiny; Gabriel believed that, in this modern world, we’d become so jaded that we didn’t truly believe anymore, and believed that only by truly experiencing Hell would we able to earn the right to enter Heaven.”

“That sound more than slightly nuts to me,” Hellboy put in.

Constantine shrugged. “I think Gabriel had gone more than slightly mad,” he said. “Anyway, Gabriel tried to free the Antichrist from Angela’s body- the psychic energy of her and her twin had been required to bring him into this plane- but I managed to summon Satan to Earth to intervene by slitting my wrists.”

Illyria blinked. “Pardon?” she said, looking incredulously at Constantine. “How would your death get Lucifer involved in your affairs?”

“Not meaning to sound arrogant, but I’d made myself a bit of a thorn in his side,” Constantine said, looking over at Illyria. “I was pretty much the only soul he’d come to Earth personally to collect, which gave me my only chance at saving the world. Lucifer actually rather enjoyed the status quo that existed in my reality, so he sent his ‘son’ back down to Hell, stripped Gabriel of angelic status, and then asked me what I wanted in exchange.”

“ _And you asked to be reborn_?” Batman asked.

“No,” Constantine said, shaking his head. “I asked for Angela’s sister to be sent where she belonged; to Heaven.” He sighed. “Her parents had always thought she was crazy; God was the only person she believed loved her. I couldn’t leave her down in Hell for eternity just because she couldn’t handle it.”

“So, if you weren’t resurrected there, how come you’re still alive?” Cole asked, looking curiously at Constantine.

“Well, it turned out that me saving Angela’s sister was enough of a good deed to merit me a place in Heaven,” Constantine said. “However, Satan dragged me back down, saying that I would be restored and given another chance to prove where I belonged; Heaven or Hell.” He shrugged. “And, well, here I am, trying to prove I belong in Heaven by helping out in any fight I can, no matter what the odds against me are.”

* * *

  
Angel nodded. “Commendable attitude, Mr Constantine,” he said, before turning to Leo. “Now, unless there’s anyone else who might be showing up that we don’t know about, I think it’s time you told us what the situation is that merits all of us being gathered together.”

Leo nodded. “Of course,” he said, indicating some of the chairs scattered around the room. Each member of the Coven took one of the chairs, and Leo began to speak.

“Firstly, I should explain how Cole and I know each other,” Leo said, indicating his friend. “About four centuries ago, a prophecy was made that, someday, three sisters would be born with remarkable magical powers, gifted with enough strength to battle any force of evil that had ever existed in this world, collectively known as ‘the Charmed Ones’, wielding the ‘Power of Three’. The prophecy was fulfilled about five years ago, when the three Halliwell sisters- Prue, Piper and Phoebe- unlocked their powers by reading their family’s ancient spell book, the Book of Shadows.”

Hellboy raised his stone hand. “Question?” he asked casually. “What are their powers?”

“Well, Piper can freeze or destroy objects with a flick of her hands, Phoebe can levitate and see the future, and Prue could astral project herself and move objects with her mind,” Leo explained.

“‘Could’?” Spike said, looking up in surprise at that comment. “What happened to her; she get her powers changed?”

Leo looked over harshly at Spike. “She died two years ago, Spike,” he said. “Don’t make fun of it.”

Spike swallowed nervously. “Oops,” he muttered under his breath.

Hellboy looked curiously over at Leo and Cole. “But, surely, without her, the other two sisters couldn’t fulfil their destiny?” he said. “I’m not much of an expert on prophecies, but I’m pretty sure they need to be kept accurate to work.”

“They found a half-sister recently, back where I come from,” Cole said. “Paige Matthews, the result of an affair their mother had after her divorce from the sisters’ father; can call objects to her just by saying their names, among other things.”

“OK…” Blade said, looking curiously at the two men. “You know, I’m still not getting who you two are.”

“I’m their Whitelighter- their guardian angel, if you will,” Leo explained. “I was originally a medic in World War Two, but I died at the battle of Guadalcanal and was reborn as a Whitelighter due to my good deeds in life; I give them any information they need to fight evil, and act as their liaison to the Elders- higher powers, just a few steps down from Gods, if you will. As for Cole, he was a half-human, half-demon sent to kill us, but his human half proved strong enough to let him fall in love with Phoebe, and he rejected his evil nature to join us.”

“I see,” Constantine said, nodding thoughtfully. “So, no offence, but with three powerful witches at their disposal- according to you, the world’s most powerful witches ever- why do the Elders need us?”

“The sisters have been captured,” Leo said.

* * *

  
Cole leapt to his feet in horror.

“Phoebe’s _WHAT_!” he yelled, looking over at Leo. “WHY THE _HELL_ DIDN’T YOU TELL ME EARLIER!”

“Cole, sit _down_ ,” Leo said, looking over at Cole with a fixed expression on his face. “I didn’t mention it earlier because I knew you’d react like this, and I had to be sure I had everyone’s attention so you wouldn’t go diving in by yourself and get us all in trouble. I’m sorry, but if you go diving it now by yourself, all you’d achieve is getting yourself captured, and Piper, Phoebe and Paige may be in even more trouble.”

Cole looked like he was about to continue his exclamation nevertheless, but sighed, nodded, and sat back down.

“So, what happened?” he asked his old friend, trying to contain his anger.

“One of our newer adversaries- after your time, you wouldn’t know him- came back after we thought they’d been vanquished,” Leo explained. “We’re… a bit unclear on how it happened, or even how they’re still alive, but they’ve somehow acquired greater power than they ever had before, and they’re trying to set themselves up as the new Source. Their forces managed to take the sisters by surprise and captured them, and they’re holding them in this fortress until they’ve gathered all the world’s demons together.”

“ _And once they've done that_?” Batman asked inquiringly.

“Then the sisters will be killed in front of a vast audience to prove the power that our foe wields,” Leo said.

“ _Ah_ ,” Batman said, nodding. “ _Well, that explains why they’re not dead yet, at least_.”

“But it doesn’t explain why _we’re_ here,” Blade said, looking curiously over at Leo. “Couldn’t your lot just blast their way in and hope for the best?”

“Our foe’s set up a massive magical field around his base,” Leo explained. “Nothing good can get in there, no matter how powerful they are. The Elders are hoping that, since all of you are naturally evil, you’ll be able to get through the barrier, save the sisters, and tackle the foe in question.”

“I see…” Angel said, nodding slowly. “Well, that makes sense.”

Then he stood up, stretched, and looked around at the others. “Well, I guess that’s it; our only question is, what’s our first move?”

“What else?” Hellboy said, raising his gun. “We get in there, kick some ass, rescue the sisters, and then stop this sucker before he can do any more damage.” He looked over at Leo. “Care to give us directions?”

“You won’t need any,” Leo said, smiling slightly back at Hellboy. “I’m coming with you.”

Noticing the incredulous expression on the other’s faces, he smiled. “I know I’m not exactly an evil being, but that’s taken into account; I’m not going to use my powers near the base until I have to, your capacity for offensive evil should block out my capacity for simply passive good, and I’ll be shifting into a darker form to try and lessen my chances of being recognised.”

He closed his eyes, focused briefly, and then…

… _Changed_ right in front of them.

Now he was a taller man, with a thinner face and looking slightly fitter than he had before, along with short dark hair.

‘Leo’ smiled at them. “Meet Jeric,” he said casually. “He was a warlock who spent centuries trying to find a witch host for his deceased lover, but was vanquished a short while back when he tried to use Paige as a host. The way I see it, he’s big enough in the Underworld to get me in, but small enough so that not many people should know he’s dead.”

“ _I see…_ ” Batman said, nodding thoughtfully. Than he shrugged and looked over at Angel and Cole. “ _Well, you two appear to the resident experts in matters like this; shall we be off now_?”

Angel nodded. “The sooner the better,” he said. “If we don’t get moving, our opponent could kill the sisters before we can do anything about it.”


	4. Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here

“So, where’s this fortress we’re breaking in to?” Hellboy asked, looking curiously over at Leo.

“Down in a kind of ‘borderland’ between Earth and the Underworld,” Leo explained, scratching the back of his neck idly as he looked over at his new friends. He always found shape-shifting slightly uncomfortable; he couldn’t shake the feeling that he looked like he a kid playing dress-up with his brother’s clothes, even if his body had changed as well as his clothes. “Our adversary decided it was probably for the best if he didn’t position himself anywhere obvious in those options; we’d have a better chance of breaking into a fortress if it was on Earth, and there are those in the Underworld who may not be too happy with his attempts to take over.”

“Sensible enough,” Spike shrugged, standing up and flexing his shoulders. “So, how do we get there?”

“Cole,” Leo said, indicating his friend. “He’ll shimmer you, Illyria, Blade and Constantine into the fortress, and then come back for me, Angel, Batman and Hellboy; if you guys run into trouble, we’ll want to save our strongest fighters for last rather than hit them with everything we’ve got at once, and I need to come in with a being with a great capacity for evil or the good nature of my powers might be detected.”

“Nice idea,” Angel said, before looking around at the other members of the Coven. “Those of you going in first, remember to stay alert; if they take you by surprise, you’ll be in trouble. We don’t know what we’ll be encountering in there, but if you encounter anything, don’t kill it unless you have to; we may need information.”

Constantine looked curiously over at Angel. “No offence, but who put you in charge?” he asked the vampire.

Angel blinked in surprise; it was almost as though he hadn’t fully processed what he was doing. He looked over at Constantine and shrugged.

“Nobody really,” he said. “I have to apologise; I’m just so used to being in charge at home I forgot that wasn’t the case here.” He looked around at the other members of the Coven and sighed. “Sorry about that, everyone.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Blade shrugged, raising his sword experimentally and taking a couple of brief practice swings. Nodding in approval, he slid the sword back into his scabbard and looked back up at Angel. “The way I hear it, you’re the most experienced of all of us; Hellboy and I are strictly ‘hit first’ kinda guys, Leo’s more of a pacifist than anything else, Spike, Constantine and Cole are a fair bit younger than you, and Batman and Illyira…”

He shrugged, and looked over at the two in question. “Well, no offence on you guys, but, personally? I wouldn’t trust you as far as I could throw you.

“If I was human,” he added as an afterthought.

Batman nodded casually. “ _Nobody blames you for that, Blade_ ,” he said, trying to sound as nonchalant as he was trying to look. “ _I do not fully trust myself at times; I do not expect others to trust me enough to follow my orders in a combat situation. I am satisfied to follow Angel’s leadership, if that is what we are doing_.”

Hellboy nodded. “Pretty much the same over here,” he said, smiling slightly as he glanced over at Angel.

“I’ve been pretty much doing it for the past year; might as well keep it up,” Spike said casually. He glanced over at Illyria. “Blue?”

Illyria looked harshly over at Spike. “I shall not tolerate being treated as a mere foot soldier, half-breed!” she yelled at him briefly, before calming down slightly as she turned back to Angel. “However, I have fought with you and alongside you by now, vampire, and, if pain will be caused to the demons, I shall be prepared to fight according to your requests.”

“Um… thanks,” Angel said, uncertain what else he could say to something like that. He looked over at Constantine, Cole, and Leo. “How about you three?”

Constantine shrugged casually, and Leo and Cole nodded in agreement.Blade looked back at Angel. “Congratulations; you’re leader.”

Angel swallowed, looked around at the others, and nodded.

“If you’re all willing to follow… I’m willing to lead,” he said, eventually.

He looked over at Illyria, Blade, Spike, Cole and Constantine. “You’re up first; be careful.”

Cole smiled as he shifted into Belthazor. “We’ll be careful, Angel,” he said. “It’s part of the job description.”

He looked over at Leo. “Anything I should be aiming at?”

“Just follow your instincts,” Leo said. “Our foe set up a massive summoning spell that acts as a ‘lighthouse’ for any demon in existence; they’re drawn there almost instinctively.”

“Well, that’s something,” Belthazor smiled, as Spike and Blade placed their hands on his shoulders, Constantine and Illyria grabbing their hands. He closed his eyes, raised his head up…

* * *

  
And, almost instantly, the five of them were standing in a large dark room that almost resembled a large boardroom.

Blade looked around the room appraisingly, and sighed.

“ _This_ is where demons hang out?” he asked Belthazor casually. “I was expecting something a bit hotter.”

“They exaggerate the heat aspect of Hell,” Belthazor said, shrugging casually. “Generally only the higher-ranking demons live in the hot areas; the rest of Hell is traditionally fairly cool. It’s one of the driving forces for demons to commit evil acts; the more agents of good they kill, the closer to the main heat they get, and the more enjoyable their time down here becomes.”

“Really?” Constantine said, looking curiously over at Belthazor. “That’s one more difference between our worlds; where I come from, Hell was always burning up regardless of where you went in it.”

Belthazor smiled. “Yeah, that’s the multiverse for you, I guess,” he said, shrugging slightly. “After all, where’s the fun in having alternate universes if they have too much in common when you look closely?” He sighed. “Anyway, I’d better get going; the sooner everyone’s here, the sooner I can get home.”

He closed his eyes and faded away into the air.

* * *

  
Blade blinked at that, but shrugged it off and pulled out his sword, checking over it in case it needed cleaning.

“Nice weapon,” Constantine said approvingly, nodding his head at the sword in the dark-skinned hybrid’s hand.

Blade smiled slightly. “Thanks,” he said. He shrugged. “It’s mostly all I really use in a combat situation; as I said, I’m not much of a strategic thinker. I’m more of a ‘hit it till it dies’ kind of guy, to be perfectly honest.”

“There is nothing wrong with that,” Illyria said, shrugging slightly. “I do that fairly often myself; it has never gotten me killed yet.”

“Yeah, no offence, Blue, but it nearly did with Hamilton, if my memory’s accurate,” Spike put in, looking over at his blue-skinned ally casually. “You just hit away at that bastard when you two dooked it out, and what happened? He beat you into a bloody pulp.”

Illyria glared over at Spike. “Do not presume to taunt me, half-breed!” she yelled at him.

“Oh for cripes sake, what are you going to do; kill me?” Spike asked, looking over at her casually. “I mean, be realistic here, Blue; you’re stuck in the heart of the base of a guy who’d probably be happy to see you killed, your powers are nothing like what they used to be, and there’s only about nine of us to stop these buggers? Take me out, and your chances of survival aren’t that great; at least when I’m here, that means slightly less people’ll be focusing on taking you down.”

Illyria looked like she was about to strike Spike regardless, but, in the end, she just turned away from his and stared blankly at a wall as she slumped against a table.

Blade blinked briefly in confusion, and glanced over at Spike.

“What was all that about?” he asked, indicating Illyria. “I thought you two were on the same side?”

“Not really; she’s only here because she’s got nowhere else to go,” Spike said, looking back at Blade. “I mean, she waits millions of years to conquer the planet, and when she wakes up, she finds her army’s dust and her original body’s gone? Where else would she go; she’s hardly operating on her peak when she’s like this, you know?”

“Ah,” Constantine said, nodding slightly as he looked over at Illyria. “Being human limits her abilities?”

“Limits?” Spike asked, smiling slightly. “Johnny, old boy, if we hadn’t drained off her power, she’d have _destroyed_ her body! She was packing so much of a wallop that she could’ve destroyed the continent if we hadn’t stopped her!”

“It was the tetonic plate,” Illyria said, looking back at him harshly. “If you must insult me, half-breed, insult me using the correct information.”

“Insult? Hey, I thought you’d take it as a _compliment_ that I acknowledge how much damage you can do!” Spike protested, raising his hands defensively. “You know, Blue-”

But before he could finish, the air shimmered, and the other five members of the Coven appeared in the room.

Angel blinked as he glanced around the room, and shrugged.

“Well, it’s an improvement over the last time I was in Hell,” he said, trying to sound casual about the whole thing.

“What?” Constantine asked, looking over at Angel. “You’ve been in Hell before?”

Looking at Constantine’s suddenly apprehensive expression, Angel raised his hands placatingly.

“I assure you I didn’t die and come back from there,” he said, trying to reassure Constantine’s nerves. “It was just that this portal to Hell had been opened and the only way to stop it was my blood. I had to be thrown into the portal to save the world, and was eventually restored to this world by…”

He stared up at the ceiling for a brief moment, before shrugging and saying, “…by something that I still haven’t identified, but which I hope to figure out someday.”

He looked around at the Coven. “Anyway, now that we’re all here, I think we need to get down to business. If we’re going to find this villain, we’ll need to divide our resources to get a better idea of the situation.”

Looking around at the others, he began to issue orders. “Leo, Cole, Constantine; in terms of physical strength, you three are our weakest links, so you’ll all go in separate groups. Leo, you’re with me and Hellboy; Constantine, you’re with Spike and Batman; Cole, you go with Blade and Illyria. In the event of a problem, Batman, Leo and Cole will try and transport your groups away as fast as possible...”

He looked over at Batman. “You can fly, right? I mean, I know _our_ Dracula can, but could yours-?”

Batman held out a hand to stop Angel. His eyes briefly blinked, and then two large, bat-like wings sprouted from his shoulders, stretching out to almost twice the length of his arms.

He looked back at Angel, and nodded.

“ _Yes_ ,” he said simply to the other vampire. “ _I can fly_.”

Angel nodded back at Batman, and then turned to the others. “In the event of an attack, you guys do what you can, but if you get confronted by something that you can’t handle yourselves, do what you can and contact the rest of us before it goes too far. If you find the main villain, don’t confront him unless you have to; just call for assistance and wait for the rest of us to get there.”

He pulled out a dagger from his jacket and twirled it briefly in his hand before grabbing the hilt. “We’re facing a foe with a potentially unknown army behind him; be careful if you tackle anything.”

The other members of the Coven nodded, and then, dividing into their three allocated groups, they headed off into the corridors linked up to the room they had found themselves in.

* * *

  
From the centre of the fortress, a man sitting in a large throne, and dressed in a long black robe, blinked open his eyes and smiled.

“They’re here,” he said, turning to look at the figure beside him. “And they’ve got him, just as I was expecting.”

“You’re sure?” the other man said, raising a curious eyebrow at the man in the throne.

“Oh, I know him well…” the figure in the throne said, smiling slightly. Then his face became emotionless again and he looked over at the figure. “They’ve split into three groups; you’ll be going after his one, but leave the whitelighter’s group alone; I’d like to be sure of some interesting competition when he gets here.”

He smiled slightly. “I’d like to see Leo explain _this_ kind of omission to his new friends…”

“And what about the third group?” the other man said, looking curiously at the figure on the throne. “Who’ll be handling them?”

The man on the throne smiled as he looked over at the other figure.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” he said casually. Then he waved his arm in a dismissive manner. “Now get going, will you, Barbas?”

The Demon of Fear growled slightly at that comment, but turned around and shimmered out of the room.

The figure smiled as he stared at his hand, flexing his fingers experimentally.

“Soon, Belthazor…” he said, thoughtfully to himself. “Soon, we shall meet again.”

He grinned widely. “And this time, things will be _very_ different.”


	5. Fear and the Hybrid

“So, this is what they’ve got passing as the bad guy’s secret base these days?” Hellboy asked, looking around at the large stone corridor they’d been walking through ever since they’d parted ways with the other members of the Coven. “I mean, this guy _really_ didn’t have much imagination; stone, metal doors, and the occasional hole revealing fire?”

He sighed. “It’s kinda pathetic, really.”

“Don’t underestimate this guy, Hellboy,” Leo said, looking over at the demon. Hellboy had taken the lead shortly after they’d started walking, based on his instinctive assumption that, in the event of an attack, he’d be best equipped to handle anything powerful that tried to take them down. “We’ve vanquished him before- in an apparently very decisive manner, I might add- and he _still_ managed to come back to give us this situation we’ve got at the moment.”

He sighed. “Believe me, this guy mat very well be one of the most powerful forces in the world that _isn’t_ a god of some make or description.”

Angel looked over at Leo curiously. “Really?” he said. “This guy’s _that_ good?”

“Pretty much,” Leo said, sighing as he looked back at Angel. “He’s not quite indestructible, but he’s definitely close enough; we couldn’t develop anything that could stop him when we first fought him.”

Hellboy turned around to say something, but Leo raised a finger to stop him. “Trust me; we’ve sorted that problem out now.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small phial and showed it to Angel and Hellboy. “A power-stripping potion. It’s been developed to target our foe’s healing abilities; if one of us can get it down his throat, it should limit his healing powers long enough for us to kill him by normal means.”

“Meaning what, precisely?” Hellboy asked, looking back at Leo. “Broken neck, crushed skull, taking a massive pummelling all over, what?”

“The first two would be best,” Leo said, as he put the phial back in his pocket. “The third would work, but there’s no guarantee his healing wouldn’t active in the course of the fight; the first two are far faster.”

“Right then,” Angel said, nodding briefly as he took that detail in. “Well, we’ll certainly bear that in mind when we consult our strategy-”

Hellboy suddenly stuck out both arms, stopping Angel and Leo in their tracks. Before either of them could speak, he’d pressed them up against the wall, and was looking nervously at the corridor in front of them.

As the vampire, demon and Whitelighter watched, two large hound-like demons with what appeared to be the hair of Medusa around their necks, walked past the entrance to the corridor they were currently in, followed by a tall demon with ram-like horns and almost flesh-coloured scales.

“A Fyarl?” Angel said, looking at the ram-headed demon.

Hellboy swore as he looked at the hound-like creatures. “Sammaels…” he muttered under his breath, as they vanished from their view.

“That’s bad, I take it?” Angel asked, looking up at the demon.

“They’re practically impossible to kill,” Hellboy explained, as he lowered his arms and freed Angel and Leo. “I tackled quite a few a while back; the only way to take ‘em out is to burn ‘em- internal or external, makes no odds either way- otherwise they’ll just keep coming at ya.”

“Great…” Leo sighed, as he stared up at the ceiling, scratching his neck as though he was wearing an uncomfortable suit (Then again, maybe that was what it felt like; who was to say what shape-shifting was like?) “I wonder how the others are doing?"

* * *

  
“Damnit!” Blade whispered, as he once again forced Belthazor and Illyria back into the side of the corridors they were currently navigating, only just avoiding the small division of Mohra demons that were passing by. It wasn’t that much- only about five of the samurai-like demons- but, given the necessity of a sneak attack right now, and taking into account his ignorance of the full extent of his associate’s abilities, Blade didn’t feel like trying his luck against them. Besides, even amateurs in this game knew that taking out patrols created a time limit in your operations; he couldn’t risk that right now.

As the Mohra vanished, he moved away from the wall and glanced back at Belthazor. “Is this normal for these guys?” he asked. “So many of them operating in one place, I mean?”

Belthazor shook his head. “No, not really,” the red-skinned demon replied. “Traditionally, demons normally treat each other like white people treated the other races in the 1700s; there’s traditionally a ‘class’ system in most cases.” He shrugged. “Half-breeds like me are normally near the bottom no matter what the company we’re in, unless we’ve proven ourselves in some way, but the ‘magical’ and ‘physical’ demons constantly bicker amongst themselves about who’s better; it’s rare that the two of them interact, especially on a scale like this.”

“Indeed,” Illyria put in, nodding in agreement as the three of them continued to walk. “I myself was used to this in my time; back then, I commanded armies of demons, and was one of the greatest of the Old Ones, even among others-”

Blade interrupted. “Any chance we could use your rep with these guys to make some of them shut up?”

Illyria shook her head. “No, half-breed; that would not work,” she said, as they entered a similar room to the one that they had arrived in; the main differences were that this one was slightly smaller, and lacked the large table in the centre. In fact, with its large chairs and bookcases, it almost looked like a library…

* * *

  
Blade sighed. “Great,” he muttered, drawing his sword and slumping down into a chaise. “I don’t know what’s worse; being stuck in an enemy base, or being stuck in the base with no idea where to even _go_.”

“Well, it’s nobody’s fault, is it?” Belthazor said, as he followed his friend’s example and sat down in another chair, while Illyria stood beside a bookcase and stared out in front of her, apparently indifferent to the conversations of her teammates. “I mean, really, how could any of us-”

He looked up, and froze at something he saw in front of him.

“Phoebe?” he whispered, half under his breath, as he shimmered slightly and turned back into the human form of Cole Turner, his eyes constantly locked on a point just to Blade’s left.

Instantly, Blade leapt to his feet, looking in the direction of Cole’s glance, desperate to see what Cole was looking at and why he hadn’t seen it earlier…

But there was nothing there.

“What?” he said, looking curiously back at Cole. “What are you talking about; there’s nobody there.”

“No… it’s Phoebe…” Cole whispered, sounding almost horrified at the sight he appeared to be seeing. “She’s under attack… something’s hurting her…”

He tried to move one hand, but suddenly froze as though he’d encountered an obstacle. He stared down at his hands in horror, and then looked up desperately at Blade.

“What are you waiting for; cut them!” he yelled, waving his left hand at something on his right wrist that didn’t seem to be there. “You’re the one with the sword; _cut these bloody things already_!”

Illyria walked over to stand beside Blade. “What is the assassin talking about, half-breed?” she asked curiously. “Can you see what he claims is there?”

Blade shook his head. “Believe me, I’m just as confused as you are, Illyria,” he said, as he slid his sword back into its scabbard and turned away from Cole, trying to block out his heartfelt pleas for aid; until he better understood what was going on here, he wasn’t going to try anything that could make them worse, and if that meant ignoring a desperate plea for help…

He sighed.

He’d do it.

He glanced around the room, trying to see anything that might be causing Cole’s sudden panic attack…

Illyria drew in a sharp breath.

“Wesley?” she whispered in horror, as though unable to believe what she was seeing.

“What?” Blade asked, looking back at the blue-skinned ex-goddess. “Who’s Wes- oh, _no_ ,” he groaned, as he saw her looking blankly at the wall behind him; evidently, whatever had gotten at Cole had ‘infected’ her too.

Sighing, he turned away from her, drew his sword, and stared around the room. He didn’t know what he could do now, but he was fairly sure he couldn’t do Illyria any good right now; he’d just have to find out what was causing this mess and try and stop it at the source.

“All right; who’s in here?” he asked, looking around him, sniffing now and again in case he’d missed something. “I’m warning you; I’m edgy, I’m pissed off, and I am _fucking_ tired of people messing with my associates, even if I’ve only known them for a few days.”

“And yet you killed me when you’d know me for all those months…” a voice said from behind him.

Blade spun around sharply…

And stared in shock at the man standing there, a joint between his lips, a dark green jacket over a mock B.P.R.D T-shirt, and floppy black hair that could never be even no matter how hard the man tried.

In fact, take away the mutilated stump where one arm should be, and he’d look just like Blade normally remembered him.

“Scud?” he whispered in horror.

“Yeah, Blade; it’s me,” Blade’s deceased partner said to him, taking the joint out of his lips and smirking at the Daywalker. “Surprised you even remember me, to be honest; didn’t think I meant that much to you?”

He indicated the stump. “After all, you did this, remember?”

Blade growled as he stared at Scud.

“You sold me out to the Cabinet, you fucking bastard,” he replied. “You gave them access to my DNA, _knowing_ what they were going to create; you fed Damaskinos information throughout the hunt; you fucking _sold out the human race_ , Scud! What the hell was I supposed to do; pat you on the back, congratulate you on your excellent acting skills, and let you go free! After _that_!”

Scud shrugged. “It would have been the human thing to do,” he said. “After all, take away the vampires and what was I? Just a junkie who’d never be taken seriously by anybody.”

His face hardened as he looked back at Blade. “You claim to be better than the vampires? You’re just like the rest of them.”

“No; he’s worse than us,” another voice said, from off to Blade’s right. “At least we actually admit that we’re doing this because we’re not human; he’s leaving the bodies of people he claims to care for in his path, and he _still_ claims to be human.”

Turning to face the voice, Blade could only swallow in horror at the tall, beautiful black woman walking towards him.

Vanessa Brooks.

His mother.

Staked at his own hand to destroy Deacon Frost and save the world from the would-be God of Blood, almost three years ago.

“Mother…” he whispered in horror. “But… but I had to save you…”

“By killing me?” Vanessa asked, looking harshly at him. “Your friend had developed a cure for the vampire condition; you could have just stunned me and cured me later.”

“I had no choice!” Blade yelled at her. “If I didn’t take you out then, Frost would have become unstoppable! It was you, or the _fucking_ world! I _had_ to pick the world!”

“Hardly all that human, is it?” Scud asked, looking harshly at Blade. “I always thought a true human- a true _hero_ \- tried to find a way to save everyone, not just the majority.”

“No…” Blade whispered, as he looked between the two of them. “I had to… I had to…”

“ _You had to be the vampire_ …” a voice said from somewhere else. “ _It’s what you were born to be… it’s what you’ll always be… You can’t escape it… you can’t flee it…You’ll always, at heart, be nothing more than a murdering_ -”

Blade snapped.

Swinging his right fist up by the elbow, Blade grinned with glee as he felt and heard the crunch of a nose beneath the back of his hand, following it up with a elbow jab in what he hoped was this thing’s chest, before spinning around to punch his new foe in the nose once again.

Stepping back, he quickly glanced over this new adversary. It was a man, fairly tall, with thick grey hair and a slightly lined faced, dressed in a simple black suit. His nose was covered in bloodstains where Blade had hit him, but otherwise he seemed perfectly calm and relaxed, smiling casually at Blade as the Daywalker faced him.

“Impressive,” the man said, looking at Blade as the hybrid unsheathed his sword, ready for combat. “I wasn’t expecting you to be that tough.”

“I’m always full of surprises,” Blade said dismissively, staring back at the man. “Since you’re here, I’ll assume you’re a demon; care to expand on that for me?”

“Naturally,” the man replied, grinning at Blade as he spread out his arms, palms upwards, as though he were announcing the start of a show at the theatre. “I am Barbas, the Demon of Fear.”

“Ah,” Blade said, nodding slightly. “So, that’s why they’re so shaken?” he said, indicating Cole and Illyria, still frozen in horror by whatever it was they were seeing. “You’re making them experience their greatest fears, aren’t you?”

“Indeed,” Barbas smiled. “Rather predictable, really; trapped and unable to move or help as the person they love dies in front of them.” He shrugged. “It’s really too easy for me.”

Blade, growling under his breath, raised his sword, pointing it directly at Barbas’s neck as he twisted it slightly, looking like he was just itching for an excuse to dig it into Barbas’s throat.

“Let them go,” he said simply. “Otherwise this goes forward another two inches.”

Barbas chuckled. “You think that scares me?” he said, looking down at the sword.

Then, before even Blade could react, Barbas reached up, grabbed the sword, stepped slightly to the side so it was no longer pointing at his throat, yanked Blade forward, and then punched him in the face, knocking Blade back with a surprisingly powerful force for someone of his size.

As Blade hit the ground, Barbas looked down at him and smiled.“I _am_ Fear, Daywalker,” he said.

Blade didn’t bother to reply. Instead, he reached into his coat, pulled out a silver boomerang-like weapon, and threw it directly at Barbas. The demon of fear tried to dive to one side, but even he wasn’t fast enough to avoid it slicing a long thin line on his left arm.

“GAH!” he roared, clutching at the injury as Blade leapt back onto his feet, grabbing the ‘boomerang’ as it flew back into his hands.

Blade looked at his opponent, and shook his head mockingly.

“I’ve fought people who thought they could drive me made with fear before, Barbas,” he said, as he put the ‘boomerang’ back into his coat and picked up his sword, shifting into a combat stance as he did so. “Their main advantage over me was that they played on psychological fears rather than hitting me with it directly, so I couldn’t throw them back as easily.

He chuckled as he looked at Barbas. “Your problem is that you’re too direct; those guys were real experts at getting at my weak spots.”

He allowed a small smile to grace his face- one of the few genuine smiles he’d ever given since his discovery about his true heritage. “They played on my fears in a psychological manner rather than just telling them to me. You? You’re too direct to be truly terrifying; I know what’s coming.”

He shifted into a combat stance, and glared at Barbas behind his glasses. “Let me demonstrate.”

Instantly, Blade had leapt forward, slashing away at Barbas with his sword. Despite Barbas’s flesh being no stronger than the average human’s in defending him from physical attacks, his enhanced strength and speed, as per most demons, was still enough to allow him to deflect the majority of Blade’s blows; those that did land on him were most caused by luck rather than any real skill on the Daywalker’s part.

Blade, realising his current failure, decided to change tactics; before Barbas could realise what he was doing, Blade had swung his sword-arm back and lashed out with a powerful kick at Barbas’s legs, striking the demon hard in one knee. As the demon staggered from the shock, Blade followed the kick up with a punch to Barbas’s face, striking him on his already tender nose, before throwing his sword off to one side, grabbing Barbas’s head with both hands, and head-butting him before throwing him off to one side.

Spinning around, Blade ducked down, grabbed his sword, turned back to face Barbas…And froze in horror at the sight in front of him.

“Whistler?” he said, horrified at the sight in front of him.

It was indeed his old mentor. The long hair, the neatly-trimmed beard, the slight scars all over from past adventures, the brace on his right leg that he’d worn ever since the deaths of his wife and daughters…

It was unmistakably Whistler.

The only difference was that this Whistler had a vampire bite on his neck and sharp fangs visible over his lips.

“No…” Blade said, staring at the figure in front of him. “Not you… please, not you…”

“Yes, ‘son’,” Whistler said mockingly, looking at Blade with almost pure evil in his eyes; Blade hadn’t seen that level of hatred in a foe’s eyes since he staked Deacon Frost. “Where were you when this happened, I ask you? Away.”

He coughed slightly, and then looked back up at Blade. “You were always away. You spend so much time just trying to be the hero that you forget to make sure the little people are all right; it never occurs to you that I’m not as tough as you are.”

He indicated his fangs. “You were so busy running off to be a hero on a larger scale, you didn’t even leave me any means to defend myself. The vampires found me… attacked me… destroyed our base…”

He chuckled. “And this time, you weren’t there to ‘kill’ me.”

Looking over at Blade, he shook his head mockingly at his adopted son. “Not that it would have mattered much anyway; you failed to take me out the first time this happened.”

Spreading his arms out wide, he smiled at Blade. “Go on then; hit me, if you can.”

Blade did nothing. He just stared at Whistler in dumb shock, unable to think of anything to do.

He couldn’t stake Whistler again; he just _couldn’t_. Once had been hard enough, but a second time…?

No.He’d rather kill himself than…

 _Wait a minute…_ Blade thought to himself, as he stared at the vampire in front of him. _How could Whistler get here on his own?_

Then it clicked.

Barbas.

Blade didn’t hesitate this time; before the demon could react, he gripped his sword hilt hard and thrust forward, ramming the blade right into Whistler’s heart.

“GET THE _FUCK_ OUT OF MY HEAD, YOU FUCKING BASTARD!” he roared, as Whistler’s familiar form vanished, to be revealed by the impaled form of Barbas.

Looking up at Blade, blood leaking out of one corner of his mouth, Barbas chuckled slightly.

“A valiant… if foolish… effort… Blade,” he said weakly. “I cannot… be killed… by mortal means…"

* * *

  
“How about this?” a voice said from behind them.

Blade grinned, yanked his sword out of Barbas’s chest, and ducked down to the ground…

Just in time for Belthazor’s energy ball to strike Barbas in the chest and cause him to suddenly burst into flames.

As the fire vanished, Blade grinned and turned around to look back at Illyria and Belthazor, now freed from whatever illusions Barbas had trapped them in. He’d noticed them start moving again after he’d staked Barbas, but hadn’t wanted to draw attention to it until they were ready to strike.

“You two OK?” he asked them.

Illyria nodded. “I am well, hybrid,” she said, one corner of her mouth turning up slightly as she spoke.

“Same here, Blade,” Belthazor put in, looking over at the Daywalker with a smile on his face. “Good job there; I’ve never seen anyone stand up to Barbas that… _fast_.”

He raised a curious eyebrow at Blade. “How’d you do that?”

Blade shrugged. “I’ve already been subjugated to some nutcase trying to convince me I’m little more than a beast,” he said dismissively. “Anything after that’s a waste of time, as far as I’m concerned.”

Looking back at the burnt patch that was all that was left of Barbas’ presence, he slid his sword back into its sheath and looked back at the other two. “Let’s get going; the others are probably waiting for us.”


	6. The Face of Evil

“Bollocks!” Spike hissed, as yet _another_ large demon passed along the path in front of them; how he, Constantine and ‘Batman’ were avoiding these things Spike _still_ couldn’t understand.

Batman sighed as he looked back at the other vampire. “ _This isn’t going over so well, is it_?” he said. “ _We’ve got an entire army between us and whoever is behind this, and if we don’t track him down soon, we’re probably going to have to tackle somebody just to find out where the hell the centre of this place is_.”

He glanced over at Constantine. “ _I don’t suppose your powers include an innate sense of direction_?”

Constantine shook his head. “Sorry; no can do,” he said, as he glanced around a corner, the Holy Shotgun in his left hand ready to fire if necessary. He looked back at the others, and smiled. “All clear.”

Stepping out from behind the corner, the three of them began to walk down the corridor, rounding a nearby corner…

And, with no prior warning, Batman froze, grabbed Constantine and Spike by the necks, and hauled them towards the wall.

“What the bl-” Spike began, but Batman clamped his hand over Spike’s mouth.

“ _Don’t. Say._ Anything,” the vampire whispered sharply at his teammate. “ _Someone’s coming, and I want to catch them off guard_.”

“Fair enough,” Constantine whispered, glancing down to check his gun as he did so. It was loaded and ready to fire; all he had to do was pull the trigger.

The footsteps grew closer and closer.

The three men tensed themselves, ready for action.The figure rounded the corner…

The Coven members spun around to face him…

And froze as they saw his face.

“Cole?” Spike asked, staring at the half-demon in front of them. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Cole shrugged. “We found the main room but weren’t sure where you were,” he explained. “The others sent me to track you down; after all, if push comes to shove, I’ve got the best chance of getting past them without being seen.”

“Oh yeah; that shimmering thing, right?” Constantine said, looking inquiringly at their teammate as he shouldered the Holy Shotgun.

“Exactly,” Cole said, nodding in acknowledgement at the medium. “Well, let’s get going; this corridor leads directly to the base, and it’s pretty much deserted.”

“ _Very well_ ,” Batman said, nodding at the demon before looking back at the other members of his group. “ _We have to get moving; the others may have run into problems already._ ”

“Indeed,” Cole said, as the four of them began to walk down the corridor he’d appeared from. “After all, Angelus and the others may be good, but-”

Spike froze.

“What did you just say?” he asked, turning to look quizzically at Cole.

“Well, I was saying that the others may be good, but-” Cole began.

“No, that’s not it,” Spike said, shaking his head as he turned to face Cole. “You referred to the poof as ‘Angelus’. _Nobody_ in a white hat calls my sire ‘Angel _us_ ’…”

He raised his head slightly and sniffed at Cole. “And you don’t smell right either.”

Cole sighed. “You know, I was really hoping I’d be able to just knock you all out,” he said, as he looked around at the three of them. “But, if you insist on making it difficult, than so be it.”

Before either of the vampires could stop him, Cole had lashed out with his fist at Constantine, sending the exorcist flying into the nearby wall with such force that the wall cracked. Constantine fell to the ground, unconscious and with blood trailing from his lips.Spike and ‘Batman’ stared at the fallen body for a few seconds, and then turned back to Cole.

“You _BASTARD_!” Spike yelled, as he lunged towards Cole, punching him sharply in the face. “We _trusted_ you!” he yelled at Cole as the demon bent over, clutching his bleeding lip. “The bloody _Elders_ selected _you_ as a member! And you went and _signed up with the bloody enemy_! They’re going to kill your girl, you _SON OF A-_!”

Suddenly Cole leapt up, striking Spike in the jaw with a roundhouse punch that threw the vampire back across the corridor like he was a rag doll.

The half-demon (Or was he something more, ‘Batman’ was starting to wonder) looked down the corridor at Spike, a smile on his face as he looked at the fallen vampire.

“You never did strike me as having much in the way of brains, William,” Cole smiled, looking over at ‘Batman’ as he finished. “But you, Bats… you trained as a detective before gaining these powers. Surely _you_ can guess what’s going on here?”

“ _I have some ideas_ ,” ‘Batman’ replied, looking back at his foe as he tensed himself for action. “ _You’re not_ our _Cole, are you_?”

Cole smiled. “Yeah, pretty much,” he said, grinning as he looked at ‘Batman’. Then he raised his arms as he shifted into a combat stance. “Now, care to come quietly, or do we do this the hard way?”

‘Batman’ didn’t bother to reply. Instead, letting his actions speak for him, he lunged towards Cole, claws outstretched as his face began to elongate into the form of a demonic bat…

Then a massive burst of energy struck him in the face, and he knew no more.

* * *

  
“Damnit!” Hellboy muttered, as they narrowly managed to avoid getting caught by a demon that resembled the offspring of a bull and a serpent. He looked over at Leo. “Are we _ever_ gonna get there?”

“We should be close,” Leo said, looking back at the large red demon while Angel stood out in front of them, sniffing the air with his enhanced senses. “Just a few more corridors, and, if the Elder’s information is accurate, we should be-”

“There,” Angel interrupted, pointing down a nearby corridor. “Just go down that way, and we’re at the main chamber.”

“ _Finally_ ,” Hellboy commented, pulling out his gun and checking it for bullets as they walked around the corner and found themselves facing a large wooden door.Leo looked up at the door and then glanced over at Angel.

“You’re sure?” he asked his old friend.Angel nodded. “As sure as I can be. Magic doesn’t exactly have a smell, but demons have fairly distinctive odours in most cases, and I’m getting a large mass of them behind here.”

“Good,” Hellboy said, raising the gun and looking down at Leo. “We waiting for the others, or can we get this party started now?”

“Waiting,” Leo told Hellboy. “We don’t know what kind of forces they have back there; we’ll need all the power we can get.”

“You talking about us?” a deep voice said from down the hall. The three Coven members looked up, and smiled in relief at the sight; it was Blade, Cole and Illyria, Cole in his human form and Blade with his sword unsheathed.

Angel smiled at the sight; for all her problems, Illyria was one of the few friends he had left, and, even though he’d barely known them any time, he already felt a certain kinship with Blade and Cole. After all, Cole _was_ one of the few demons he’d ever met with an actual human soul, and Blade… well, he identified with the man’s longing to kill what many would call his own kind.

“Among others,” Angel said, smiling at the hybrid. “How’d things go?”

“Well, we had a close call with Barbas, but Blade here managed to deal with him,” Cole said, smiling as he indicated the dark-skinned warrior.

Leo’s jaw dropped. Angel had always thought that was just an expression, but here was living proof of it in front of him.

“You… _you_ stopped _Barbas_?” Leo asked, looking at Blade like he was the Messiah having just resurrected Lazarus.

“Yeah, I did,” Blade replied, looking over at Leo. “What; shouldn’t I have?”

“No, it’s just… well, we’ve _never_ been able to stop him,” Leo said, looking at Blade with new respect. “How did you do it?”

Blade shrugged. “After Deacon Frost tried to convince me I was only a vampire, that guy couldn’t hit me with anything that could be worse,” he said simply.

Then he looked around at the door. “So, this is the main chamber?”

“We think so,” Angel replied. “At least, I’m smelling a lot of demons behind those doors, so it seems a fairly safe bet that whatever’s through there is a major location in this place.”

“Seems sensible enou-” Blade began, then stopped, cocking his head to one side as though listening to something, Angel doing the same after a delay of a second or two.

* * *

  
“What?” Illyria asked, looking curiously between the two part-vampires. “What is-”

“Illyria, be quiet,” Angel whispered to her. “There’s something going on in there, and Blade and I can’t hear it if you keep talking.”

Illyria shut her mouth and just stood there, watching the two champions as they strained their ears, Hellboy, Leo and Cole watching them with her.

After a minute or two of listening, Blade and Angel looked at each other, horror evident on their faces.

“Was that…?” Blade asked.

“It sounded like it,” Angel replied. “And trust me, it’s one of his favourite sayings; if it’s not him, it’s his long-lost twin.”

”What?” Illyria said, looking over at Angel. “Is the other half-breed in danger?”

“Maybe…” Angel said, as he turned towards the door. “There’s only one way we’re going to answer that question; open the door and take a look- but _nobody_ ,” he said, grabbing Illyria by the shoulder as she began to walk past him, “goes in yet; if the three of them aren’t all there, we’re to wait for them until they get here.”

“Sensible enough,” Cole said, nodding in approval.

“Right then,” Angel said, reaching out towards the door handle. “Let’s see what’s in here.”

He opened the door slightly, as the rest of the Coven gathered around him to stare into the room…

And the six of them stared in shock at the sight.

The room was filled with demons of all kinds, from the magic-wielding demons to just those demons who were superhumanly strong. Although some of the demons were looking over at each other with tensed hostility, overall the atmosphere was calm.

At the other end of the room, in front of a large black throne, a large cage hung in the air, containing an unconscious Constantine and ‘Batman’, and a semi-conscious Spike. Spike and Constantine had large bruises on their jaw and face respectively (Constantine had a bleeding lip, Angel noted), and ‘Batman’ seemed to have been burned by something, but otherwise they seemed well.

It was the figure in the throne that they all stared at it. Dressed in long dark robes, his face twisted in an expression of great hatred and power as he stared out at his ‘kingdom’, lacking the humanity that it had possessed when the Coven had first seen it, even if then it had been twisted in anger and confusion at his new surroundings.

“It’s… it’s me…” Cole whispered, his expression a mixture of awe and horror at the sight of himself standing at the head of this dark army of nightmares.


	7. The Future/Alternate Self

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Cole shut the door, turned around to face Leo, and, grabbing him by the shirt, hauled him to at least a full head above Cole.

“ _What the hell is going on here!_ ” he hissed at Leo, as the other members of the Coven looked at their two new friends in surprise.

“Look, Cole…” Leo said, looking nervously down at the half-demon in question; whether he was good now or not, he knew very well what Cole was capable of, and he wasn’t keen on being a first-hand recipient of one of Cole’s energy balls. “This isn’t really a good time-”

“Oh, and when _will_ it be a good time, Leo; when we’re _dead_?” Cole hissed, lowering Leo so that they were almost nose-to-nose. “Just answer the question, or we’ll send you back to the Elders and handle this our own way.”

“He has a point, Leo; we have a right to know what’s going on,” Hellboy said, looking down at Leo as he raised the Samaritan in his left hand; he didn’t so much as _point_ it towards Leo, but the implication was definitely there. “So, either talk now, or things get ugly later.”

“What’s it going to be, Leo?” Angel asked, casually giving Blade a slight nod as the hybrid laid his hand on his sword hilt.

“All… all right,” Leo gasped. Cole lowered him to the ground and backed away, letting the rest of the Coven encircle Leo.

“So… what happened to me?” Cole asked, indicating the door they’d just been looking in. “I thought you said I was human now?”

“No; I said you _became_ human,” Leo corrected, holding up a finger to emphasise the point. “I never said you were _still_ human.”

Cole rolled his eyes. “Bloody loopholes…” he muttered, before looking back at Leo. “So, what happened?”

“The Source freed the Hollow,” Leo said.

Cole’s jaw dropped; if anything, he almost seemed as shocked as that as he’d been to see himself sitting in the throne.

“He did _wh_ -!” he began to say, but was stopped by Blade clamping his hand over Cole’s mouth.

“Stay quiet; we can’t attract attention right now,” he said, noting Cole’s angry expression. He glanced over at Leo curiously. “What’s the Source… and, come to that, what the hell is the Hollow?”

“The Source was the leader of all evil magic; one of the most powerful beings in the world, in his time,” “As for the Hollow, it was powerful… anti-magic, I guess would be the best term for it,” Leo explained, looking over at Blade. “Eons ago, when it was first released, it nearly decimated all magic; even with good and evil working together, all they were able to do was contain it. It was guarded by an angel and a demon for centuries, until the Source- the leader of all evil demonic magic- killed them and took the Hollow into himself to stop the Charmed Ones.”

Angel rolled his eyes. “Why is it these guys never seem to care about the consequences of their actions?” he asked rhetorically. Then he looked back at Leo. “Since we’re all still here, shall I assume something went wrong?”

“It did,” Leo said. “The Seer- a demon with the ability to see the future- realised that the Source had gone too far, and formed an alliance with Cole that transferred the Hollow to him. He used it to return the powers the Source had already taken from us, and then drained off enough of the Source’s magic so that he could be killed, before she and Phoebe then sealed the Hollow away.”

“OK…” Cole said, looking at Leo in confusion. “So, what was the problem there?”

Leo sighed. “The Source’s powers weren’t destroyed, Cole,” he said, looking at his old friend. “They were transferred… into you.”

* * *

  
Cole could only stare in horror.

 _No way…_ he thought to himself. _No way… he did_ not _just say what I think he did…_

“ _I_ … was the _Source_?” he asked, as though seeking a denial.

“Technically, not quite,” Leo said, holding up a hand as though trying to placate Cole. “Although you were possessed by his power, we later figured out that your human soul, coupled with your love for Phoebe, sometimes gave the ability to fight off the Source’s influence, or use his powers for our benefit; you even helped us save Paige when she was possessed by a demon power, and protected a past version of Phoebe when a spell Phoebe cast turned out in an unexpected manner.”

Cole could only blink. _Honestly_ , he thought to himself, _they were right; it is_ not _worth the risks to take a look at your future…_

“Well… that’s something, right?” Hellboy asked, looking at Leo. “I mean, if our guy here-” he said, jerking a thumb at Cole, “is still hanging in there, than maybe-”

“He’s not like that anymore,” Leo said, looking over at Hellboy. “We eventually figured out the truth, and we vanquished Cole, sending him to the Wasteland.”

“The what?” Illyria asked, looking around at Leo inquiringly.

“It’s where the kind of demon we regularly encounter goes after they’re vanquished,” Leo explained. “Cole lost his powers, but his human soul let him hang on, and he eventually learned how to absorb the powers of any vanquished demons in the Wasteland before using them to escape.”Cole sighed.

“And, let me guess, you couldn’t quite bring yourselves to trust me?” he asked Leo, looking over at his old friend.

Leo blinked in surprise.

“I _was_ a lawyer, Leo,” Cole said, in response to Leo’s suddenly rather confused expression. “I _had_ to track down any minor loopholes in contracts if I wanted to make any headway in my work, and I noticed you saying ‘later’ when you explained about my soul taking control.” Hands in his pockets, he sighed in an almost dejected manner as he stared at his old friend. “You only figured out I wasn’t in complete control _after_ I’d been back for some time, right?”

“Yeah…” Leo said, bowing his head in shame.

“So, what happened?” Hellboy asked, looking between the two men curiously.

“Well, Cole eventually began to fall apart after we continued to reject him; he even tried to access the power of the magical nexus that the house was built on, but we were able to fight him off,” Leo said. “Eventually, Cole…”

He sighed and looked at Cole. “You altered reality so that Paige was killed before she could reconstitute the Power of Three.”

* * *

  
Blade cocked his head to one side as he looked at Leo, an expression of surprise only just visible beneath his glasses.

“I’ll take it that’s not a good thing?” he asked, his voice as neutral as ever. “Or a normal power, come to that.”

“Both correct,” Leo said, looking over at the hybrid before turning back to Cole. “We don’t know everything about the new history you created, but we do know that, in it, Piper had gone on a vendetta against Shax- a demon who killed her elder sister Prue,” he said, in response to the blank stares of the rest of the Coven, “she and I were divorced, and you and Phoebe were married, but she still hated you, and you were… somehow… in charge of several demons.”

* * *

  
Cole slumped against the wall in horror, his eyes fixed on Leo as he slowly slid to the ground.

“Oh my god…” he whispered, staring at Leo in horror. “I…. I was…”

“Still evil in that world, yeah,” Leo said. “We’d probably all still be there if Paige hadn’t orbed just as you cast the spell; as a result, she was outside of Time when history changed, and she managed to get through he change with her memories. She contacted this world’s versions of me and Piper, and we figured out that vanquishing you would restore history- which wasn’t all that hard, given that you were in the body of your other self, and he was still Belthazor.”

“Wait a minute; his other self?” Hellboy asked, looking at Leo curiously. “I thought he just changed history; surely _he_ shouldn’t haven’t been affected?”

“Time travel doesn’t work like that, Hellboy,” Leo said, looking over at the large red demon in question. “As near as we can understand, Cole didn’t exactly _create_ a reality; he just found a possibility and superimposed it over the real world, and then he- and Paige, of course- kind of… fell into it, I guess is the best expression.”

“OK….” Angel said, looking at Leo with a worried expression on his face. “Where are you going with this?”

“It’s confusing, but the essential points are simple enough,” Leo said, looking around at the five other member of the Coven. “Our other selves vanquished Cole, and Paige was restored to our reality, Cole having gone. However, we never considered one little detail of the story at the time; if Cole had replaced his alternate self, where did his _alternate_ go?”

* * *

  
Angel stared at Leo in confusion as he ran over the sentence in his mind, noting out of the corner of his eye that the others were doing the same, but he hit the answer first.

“You mean… Cole’s other self went into _his_ body?” Angel asked, indicating the door. “ _That’s_ who’s in charge here; an alternate Cole in the body of this version?”

“Yes and no,” Leo replied, looking back at Angel. “His mind did go into our Cole’s body, yes, but, unlike when our Cole entered _his_ body, the transference wasn’t voluntary, so he picked up certain traits from our Cole without realising it. He’s still an alternate, but some of the strongest personality traits from our Cole’s madness towards the end remained in the body with his powers, and they kind of… merged together.”

“So… he’s my alternate, but with some of _my_ memories?” Cole asked.

“Not exactly,” Leo said, looking back at Cole. “He has some of your personality traits towards the end, such as your fixation with Phoebe and your desperation to have her back, but his essential personality is his own; he wants to rule the Underworld and use Phoebe to conceive his heir. You…”

He shrugged. “For all your power, you knew what you wanted, and you stuck to it; you were never all that interested in getting any _more_ power.”

“So, Whitelighter, what does this… this _merge_ give the half-demon?” Illyria asked.

“Essentially,” Leo explained, “what we’ve got to deal with is a demented maniac with god-like magic powers, incredible healing abilities, and a fixation with making Phoebe become the mother of his magical heir, due to the power such a child would possess.”

He looked around at the others. “As I told Angel and Hellboy on the way here, we have a potion to temporarily deprive him of his healing powers, but it’ll only work for a few minutes; once it’s gone, we’re in trouble. He’s got Piper, Phoebe and Paige in cells underneath this place, which is probably where he’ll be sending the others, but we can’t count on any help there; the cells are designed to stop them using their magic.”

* * *

  
The Coven looked around at each other for a few moments, and then Angel turned to look Leo in the eyes.

“He’s practically a god?” he asked.

Leo nodded.

“He knows every strategy I’ve ever used up to this point in time, and has more magical power than I’ve ever possessed?” Cole asked, raising an inquiring hand.

Again, Leo nodded.

“He possesses a demonic army of more strength than anything that exists in this time?” Illyria put in.

Leo nodded in confirmation for a third time.

“We’ve got little to no chance of success?” Blade asked, as he ran his finger over his sword before looking back at the Whitelighter.

Another nod.Hellboy pulled out his gun, checked it for bullets, and smiled at the others.

“Shall I knock?” he asked, indicating the door with his stone right hand.

Cole shimmered into his Belthazor form, Angel shifted into his ‘game’ face, Blade drew his sword, Illyria tensed for action, and Leo accepted a short Japanese katana that Angel tossed over to him.

Angel nodded at the large red demon.

“We’re ready,” he said.

Hellboy grinned, and turned to face the door.

* * *

  
Cole Turner (AN: This is the one _inside_ the hall, just to clarify) wasn’t sure how things had changed so rapidly. One minute, he’d been preparing to question the intruders more fully about their purpose in his headquarters…

The next, the door had been forced open and a large red demon brandishing a gun had walked brazenly into the hall, taking advantage of the space left as demons had dived out of the way of the flying pieces of wood, and was grinning at everyone around him like this was all a big joke.

“Good afternoon, everyone,” he said casually, as five more figures walked into the room, each one looking ready for combat. “We are the Coven of Reformed Supernaturals, and we’re here to clean up the trash; if any of you want to die first, don’t hesitate to let us know now.”

“ _On the other hand_ ,” one of the other men said, looking at the demon briefly with a critical glare before turning back to the others, “you can just give us the Charmed Ones now, and nobody gets hurt.”

Cole smiled at the sight in front of him.

He stood up and clapped his hands mockingly, drawing the eyes of the six figures to him.

“Bravo, Leo!” he said, grinning at his former brother-in-law from where he sat on the other side of the room. “I didn’t think you had it in you!”

Leo shrugged. “Love makes you do the desperate, Cole,” he said. Then his face hardened. “Now, just give up now, or this will have to get unpleasant.”

“Oh, don’t make me _laugh_!” Cole said, indicating the cage in front of him. “Your colleagues- I assume these _are_ here because of you, by the way- barely even put up a fight! Why would _you_ be any more difficult?”

A figure stepped out in front of the first member of the so-called ‘Coven’ who’d entered the room. He was tall, about Cole’s height, dressed in a black costume, with red-and-black skin and not a single hair on his head.

Cole could only stare in surprise at the figure. He’d known he was in the group, of course- he couldn’t have failed to know about _this_ guy- but to actually see him…

He smiled.

“So, that’s what I looked like back then?” he asked, smiling a mockingly dashing grin at his past self. “I really prefer this form, you know.”

“Shut up,” Belthazor growled, staring at his future self as he raised one hand, an energy ball clasped in it.

* * *

  
“You want to talk?” Belthazor asked him, staring his future in the eyes. “Or do you want to fight?”

He threw the ball at his future self, noticing Angel and Blade slash out with their swords out of the corners of his eyes as Illyria and Hellboy launched punches at their nearest foes…

And then they were surrounded by demons, and the battle was on.

“Take whoever you can find!” he heard his future self call out (And Belthazor could only pray he didn’t sound like so much like a fanatical preacher when _he_ was Cole). “Just remember; Belthazor is mine!”

Belthazor growled as he rammed an elbow into the jewel in the forehead of a nearby Mohra demon, lashing out a fist to catch a passing Lazarus demon in the face.

 _You want me, you bastard_? he thought, as he leapt onto the chest of the falling Lazarus demon, vaulting himself into the air.

_Come…_

He could see his future self, standing there, just staring at him…

… _and…_

He began to shimmer, feeling the familiar traces of the swirling grey void enfold him…

… _get me_!

He materialized, facing his future self, and launched a punch at his head, grinning as he watched the man who had once be him reel back from the blow.

“You want a fight?” Belthazor asked Cole, only briefly thinking about how odd this was; it was one of the few occasions where he and Cole had been in complete agreement about something ever since they met Phoebe…

He grinned.

Good; at least this way neither of them would be disagreeing about something.

“Bring it on,” he said, as Cole looked back at him.

Cole launched a retaliatory punch at his head, and the battle was on.


	8. Cole VS Belthazor

Ducking under the blow Cole launched at his head, Belthazor lashed out with a punch of his own, striking Cole in the face, drawing his hand back towards him rather than letting it swing back to his side with the force of his blow, smiling slightly as his nail scored a long scar in his future self’s cheek. Even as the wound had begun to heal, Belthazor lashed out with a roundhouse kick from his left leg, throwing Cole off to the right.

No sooner had he hit the ground, then Belthazor was on top of him, launching countless punches at his opponent’s head, desperately trying not to give Cole even the slightest bit of breathing space.

Because, as soon as it came down to magic versus magic, Belthazor knew he wouldn’t have a prayer…

* * *

  
Angel ducked underneath an energy ball thrown by something that looked like Leo’s descriptions of a warlock, and then lashed out with his sword, smiling slightly as the sharp blade cut through his opponent’s neck, leaving its body to burst into flames as he turned around to kick out at some kind of zombie that was coming up behind him.

“Angel!” a voice called from behind him. Spinning around, Angel cut down an advancing soldier demon that resembled a brainless human, and saw Blade heading towards him, vaulting over a golem as his coat blazed behind him in a manner that almost resembled a bat’s wings as he landed.

“There’s too many of them; we need to double up!” the dark-skinned hybrid yelled.

“Then we’ll need to double-team them,” Angel said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “Get behind me; you cover my back, I’ll protect yours.”

“The two part-vampires, huh?” Blade smiled, as he stepped forward to stand behind Angel, as a new wave of demons began to charge towards them. “Let’s show them why _we’re_ the ones humans think of when they picture monsters.”

Angel grinned. “Wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said.

Then swords began to flash as the demons struck again, and the two heroes were forced to focus on more immediate concerns.

* * *

  
“This is for sanity!” Belthazor bellow, as he struck Cole again. “And for the Halliwells!” And again. “And this is for _Phoebe_!” Aga-

Cole caught the oncoming fist in his hand, and, with a grin on his face as though it were the easiest thing in the world, threw Belthazor off him, standing up with a grin on his face as his past self lay on the ground, gasping as he tried to get his breathe back.

“You’re fighting for _her_?” Cole said, sounding like he was about to start laughing at his past self. “You know, I was hoping you were at least fighting for something that _wouldn’t_ have changed- your ideas of what’s good and what’s evil, maybe- but _her_? Do you even know the full story behind what happened after your time?”

“I got the quick and ugly version,” Belthazor grunted, looking up at Cole with a determined gleam in his eyes. “You got the Source’s power, got vanquished, came back, and couldn’t accept that it was over. What else do I need to know?”

“Oh, little details,” Cole said, smiling at his ‘past’ self. “Such as, I don’t know… what she said to us?”

Cole clicked his fingers, and suddenly he was Phoebe, dressed in red trousers and a red leather jacket, with a white blouse underneath that had a remarkably frilly neck.

“Look, Cole, my career is _the_ most important thing to me!” Phoebe/Cole yelled at Belthazor. “Okay, so is that your plan? To take it away from me so that I come running to you for comfort?”

Cole shifted back into his normal form, smiling at Belthazor as he continued to speak. “Phoebe, I love you, and I don't know what's going on… but maybe I can help. Would you like me to kill someone for you? Or-or your boss, perhaps?” Papers suddenly flew around in front of Cole’s face, as though someone had thrown them. “Hey, hey, hey, hey!” he said, before he shifted back into Phoebe.

"I might not be able to use magic, but...” Phoebe/Cole began, before shifting back into Cole.

“You're sexy when you're mad, you know that?” he said, smiling. “I can't wait until I get to kiss you again.”

Then he shifted back into Phoebe. **“** Cole, I will never be with you again. I hate you, I hate you! Do you get that?”

Then Cole shifted back into his normal form, and smiled slightly at Belthazor. “Is it really worth it?” he asked his past self. “After what she’ll do to you? You _saw_ her expression; there’s no _way_ she’ll forgive us unless my plan works.”

* * *

  
“Damnit!” Hellboy yelled, as he launched another punch, destroying yet another of the creepy, grey-skinned business-suit-wearing demons that had suddenly surrounded him for some reason. “What the _hell_ are you guys? Will you just give it a bloody _rest_ already! We’re kicking your fucking _asses_ , damnit! Will you just take a hint and get _lost_ already!”

Whipping out his gun, Hellboy fired two bullets in the head of a large demon nearby that resembled the offspring of a sumo wrestler and a deranged bull, before kicking out at a thin demon with two long blades in place of its hands, sending it flying back into a couple of Mohra demons, before a large Sammael leapt in front of him.

 _Ah crap_ … Hellboy muttered, as he saw the large dog-like form in front of him. _I’m in trouble_ …

* * *

  
Belthazor glared at Cole as he just stood there, smirking at his past self as though he had somehow missed a joke.

“You’ve lost the point of it, Cole,” he said, growling. “You’re mad, you know that? Hell, I’m the _worst_ part of your past, and even _I_ think you’re being an idiot! You’re so focused on getting Phoebe _back_ , you’ve forgotten the reason you loved her in the first place!”

“I’ve what?” Cole asked, glaring at Belthazor with a vicious gleam in his eyes. “You’re saying I’ve _forgotten_ the reason the Seer wanted us to marry her? I assure you, that’s _never_ left my mind since the day it happened!”

“Not that crap about needing her to conceive your magical heir, you fucking _twat_!” Belthazor yelled at his future self. “You never loved her because of the _power_ ; you loved her for who she _was_! You’ve lost the whole _point_ of love; you want her, but you don’t _want_ her!”He took a deep breath, and glared at his future self again.

“You don’t want her anymore; you want what she represents,” he explained, already tensed to lash into action again. “You want stability back; you want things to be the way they used to be, not the way they _are_.”He paused for a moment, to make sure his future self got the point he was about to make, and then spoke again.

“Whatever part of me is left in you, you have to realise… you can’t change things. If there’s anything left of me in you… let her go.”

* * *

  
Leo yelled out in rage as he ducked under a swipe from the claws of an enraged werewolf, desperately stabbing out with his dagger at its chest, already preparing to orb the second

He’d known even before he’d met the rest of the Coven that he’d be in out of his depth- only Elders had any offensive powers, as far as he knew- but he’d _had_ to join them; he was the only one who knew how dangerous Cole could be…

Then something blue charged into the werewolf with such force that Leo could have sworn he heard its neck crack, and he found himself staring at the blue-haired, red-leather-clad form of Illyria.

“Are you well, guardian?” Illyria asked, looking back at Leo as she held out a hand to him, hauling him back to his feet.

“Yeah… with your help,” Leo said, smiling at her. “Thanks.”

“You are welcome,” Illyria said, before turning back to the demons around them. “Shall we?”

“Let’s go,” Leo said, grasping his daggers.

The two of them dived into the oncoming mass, Leo’s daggers slashing at the throats of several of the demons and warlocks coming towards them, while Illyria tackled the larger fighters, including a couple of extremely muscular demons that resembled minotaurs.

* * *

  
Cole laughed at Belthazor.

“After all you’ve heard of my past, you actually _believe_ that crap?” he asked his past self, looking at him in amazement. “Don’t you _see_ that power is all that matters now? We gave up everything we’d ever known for that woman, and what did we get out of it? Pain, agony, torment, and being driven to the brink of insanity!”

He glared at his past self. “Was it worth it, Belthazor? _Was it worth it_!”

Then he seemed to calm down, and, walking towards his younger self, placed a companionable hand on his shoulder.

“But it can be worth it… if you let me go back,” he said, smiling slightly at Belthazor as he spoke. “Let me change things… and we can _all_ get what we want. You get the life you want… I get the life _I_ want… and everybody’s happy, right?”

Belthazor brushed the hand off his shoulder and turned to look at the battle being waged around him. Angel and Blade were back-to-back, fighting against almost hopeless odds… Leo was slashing desperately at a mass of warlocks that had him cornered, while Illyria tried to dodge their various long-range offensive powers (One of them was even now firing a bolt of lighting at the blue-skinned demon)… Hellboy was desperately punching away at some of the larger demons near him, including at least three golems…

Belthazor growled.

He wouldn’t let them be risking their lives for nothing.

“No,” he said, as he turned back to his future self.

Cole blinked.

“I’m sorry… did you just say ‘no’?” he asked, sounding almost surprised.

“I did,” Belthazor said, as he glared back at this monstrosity that he might become. “What happened to us was terrible, yes, but if there’s _any_ way we can stop it, I know one thing for sure; it’s _not_ you!”

Cole sighed as he shook his head mockingly at his past self. “You’re so naïve, Belthazor,” he said, as he looked at his past self. “But, eventually, you’ll realise the truth; you want something to be right, you have to _make_ it that way.”

“Might makes right?” Belthazor asked, as he and Cole crouched slightly and began to circle each other. “I thought we joined Phoebe to _fight_ that?”

Cole sighed. “What will it take to make you see my point, Belthazor?” he asked his past self. “A _complete_ update on the year or two you’ve missed, or what?”

Belthazor didn’t even bother to reply now; he just charged forward and head-butted Cole in the stomach, following it up with a swinging blow to the head and a rapid knee to the groin, before a spinning kick knocked Cole to the ground and gave Belthazor the chance to grab something that had fallen to the ground earlier.

It was a dagger.

* * *

  
Before Cole could get back to his feet, Belthazor was on top of him, straddling Cole’s waist as he held the dagger to the back of his neck, hovering just over the point where the brain joined the spinal column.

“One false move and your brain isn’t going to be linked up to the rest of you,” Belthazor growled as Cole stared up at him in horror, as though he couldn’t quite believe that his past self still wanted to kill him after all this. “No matter _how_ tough you are, I’m prepared to bet even _your_ healing abilities can’t overcome something like _this_ fast enough for you to stop one of us killing you for good.”

Cole just glared back at Belthazor.

“You know, I _could_ just kill you with an energy ball,” he said, trying to sound casual despite the undercurrent of fear in his voice.

“Yeah, go ahead; putting aside the fact that you'd be killing _yourself_ when you cease to exist because I don't become you, I’d take you out on reflex before I died anyway,” Belthazor said, grinning at him.

Cole looked up at Belthazor for a second or two…

And smiled.

“Really?” he asked, as he raised one hand slightly. “Well, if we’re talking about _reflexes_ …”

He clicked his fingers…

And Belthazor nearly dropped the knife in shock as Phoebe Halliwell- two years older than he remembered her, but still evidently Phoebe- appeared out of thin air, her throat clutched in Cole’s hand, just out of Belthazor’s reach, and the nails on Cole’s hand digging into her neck sharply enough to draw faint traces of blood.

“If you sever that tendon, you’ll not only kill me; you’ll kill Phoebe, as my hand closes on her on ‘reflex’,” Cole said, chuckling up at his past self.

Horror-stricken, Belthazor could only stare at Phoebe as she looked back at him, confusion and terror obvious on her face.

“B… Belthazor?” she asked weakly.


	9. The Coven and the Charmed Ones

Belthazor turned back to glare at his future self, his grip tightening around the other’s neck.

“Let. _Her_. _GO_!” he roared at his other self, trying not to focus on Phoebe’s slender neck, clasped in that hand that he knew so well and yet barely seemed to know at all…

“Oh, I will once you take that knife off my throat,” Cole smiled casually up at Belthazor. “I think we both know that, right now, we’re in a stand-off position.”

“Oh, really?” Belthazor replied, trying to sound confident. “I could sever your brain before you could even _blink_ -”

“And my last action would be to exert the last little bit of pressure onto Phoebe’s neck necessary to break it,” Cole replied, looking back at his other self in an almost casual manner. “You may have put me out of action long enough to kill me… but you’ll have lost her as well.”

* * *

  
“Please… Belthazor…” Phoebe gasped, looking at the red-skinned demon pleadingly. She didn’t know what he was doing here, but, if he was anything like she remembered Belthazor being, right now, this might be her best chance at successfully convincing him to go through with this- potentially _last_ \- request.“Do it…” she gasped, as Cole’s fingers tightened around her neck. “Stop him… _please_ …”Belthazor said nothing, as he stared at the face of his human side-

 _No_ , Phoebe corrected herself, as she looked at the two faces of the man she loved.

Right now, for the first time in her memory, Cole wasn’t the better side of the duo of him and Belthazor; it was the one with the red-and-black skin that was fighting for the side of good, not the one who could walk down the street without attracting attention.

For this moment in time, she truly could _not_ count on physical appearance when looking at Cole and Belthazor.

* * *

  
“Look at him,” Cole chuckled, as he looked over at Phoebe before looking back at Belthazor. “He knows he should do it- knows it’s the only _sensible_ option- but he can’t… he _won’t_ …”

“Shut up,” Belthazor growled, pressing the knife slightly closer to Cole’s neck; only a few millimetres of skin and sinew stood between the metal and the spinal chord.

Cole, however, didn’t seem to be bothered; he just kept on looking back at Belthazor, smiling at his past self as though they were casually discussing business over a cup of tea rather than at knifepoint.

“It would all be so easy…” Cole said, smiling back at Belthazor’s growl. “So easy to lose everything we’ve ever loved… so easy to forsake the woman who made us feel like we were more than just a monster… so easy to end your life, and end hers at the same time…”

“YOU ARE _NOT_ ME!” Belthazor roared at Cole, pressing the knife slightly further into the neck, drawing a speck of blood from the blade.

Cole winced slightly as the blade broke the skin, but, as soon as the immediate discomfort had passed, he was looking back at Belthazor with a grin on his face.

“Go on then; do it,” he said, raising an eyebrow as he looked over at Phoebe. “But answer me this; are you what we _were_ , or are you what we _wanted_ to be at that time?”

Belthazor glared at Cole for a moment…

Then, sighing, he released his grip on Cole’s neck, tossed the knife off to one side, and stood up.

“You win, you piece of shit,” he said, under his breath. “Now let her go.”

“Of course,” Cole said, as he stood up, but keeping one hand around Phoebe’s throat. “Just call off your friends from my troops, and we’ll all be fine.”

Belthazor growled as he turned around to look at the other members of the Coven, but, after a moment or two, he finally spoke.

“STOP!”

* * *

  
Angel smiled as he heard Belthazor’s voice cry out over the din of battle. Perfect; that could only mean Belthazor had managed to gain the upper hand against his ‘future’ self.

Once that guy was down, maybe the other demons would be less eager to fight them…

Then Angel looked up and saw the woman whose throat was currently trapped in Cole’s hand, and knew that the situation was by no means over; if that woman wasn’t Phoebe, he’d be very surprised.

“Phoebe?” Blade asked from beside him, his sword still held out in front of him as he pointed it at an attacking Mohra demon.

“Given how shaken Belthazor is, I wouldn’t be surprised,” Angel replied, still tensed for combat if another demon tried to take them by surprise. “The others all right?”

Blade’s head didn’t move, but Angel could almost _see_ his eyes as they glanced around the room under his dark glasses, trying to take in everything around them for a few seconds.

“They all seem OK,” the dark-skinned, leather-clad hybrid said to his new friend. “Hellboy’s trying to break some kind of giant snake in half, and Leo and Illyria’re surrounded by some demons with knives for hands, but they’re all still alive.”

He raised an inquiring eyebrow. “Do we keep fighting? I might be able to-”

“To what?” Angel asked, looking back at Blade. “Take that guy,” he indicated Cole with a jerk of his head, “out before he can break Phoebe’s neck? Even if you hit him somewhere that would stop him for any length of time, he’d break her neck on reflex before he even hit the ground.”

He sighed, and, shifting out of the combat stance he’d been in since the beginning, he dropped his sword and held up his hands.

“Put down your weapons!” he called out to the other members of the Coven.

“WHAT!” Hellboy roared, sounding like he was yelling at Angel through gritted teeth. “But… but…”

“ _Do it_!” Angel said, shifting into his vampire face as he glared over at the large red demon.

Hellboy seemed about to argue, but, seeing the rage in Angel’s eyes, nodded and stood up, dropping the large green snake he’d been trying to crush and tossing his Samaritan off to one side. Leo and Illyria did the same, and, after a moment’s hesitation, Blade dropped his own sword.

* * *

  
“All right then, ‘Cole’,” Angel said, turning to look at the figure standing on the platform beside his red-skinned past self. “You win this round.”

Cole smiled. “Thank you,” he said, nodding briefly at Angel. “Nice of you to acknowledge when you’ve met a superior force.”

“This is not over, false lord,” Illyria said, glaring at Cole. “We shall get out, and then you shall pay.”

“Oh, I find that unlikely,” Cole smiled, as he raised his empty hand and smiled around at them all. “After all, I doubt that you’ll _ever_ find a way to escape… _this_.”He clicked his fingers…

* * *

  
And suddenly, all six members of the Coven who’d just been fighting the mass of demons, along with the still-dazed Phoebe, had all crashed onto the floor of a large stone room that could only be a prison cell, with a brunette and a redhead looking at them in confusion.

“What the…” the brunette said, looking at Angel as he staggered to his feet, Blade close behind him. “Who are you?”

“Angel,” Angel said simply, before looking at the two women- evidently sisters, he decided- more closely. “Which one of you is Piper?” he added.

The brunette raised a hand. “Why do you ask?” she asked.

“Well, not only would we prefer to know what to call the people we’ve risked life and limb to help,” Hellboy put in, as he staggered to his feet, his back to the two witches and Angel from where he was lying in the cell, “but your husband and sister are down over here and would probably appreciate some support,” he added, turning around to look at the group again, Leo and Phoebe both out cold in his arms. Angel could only assume that whatever had transferred them here had been too stressful on their all-too-mortal bodies for them to handle it.

“Phoebe!” the redhead- Paige, Angel recalled her name was- cried, running over to Hellboy to take her sister.

“LEO!” Piper cried, as she also ran forward to take her husband’ comatose body in her arms. Looking at the two of them as Piper examined her husband for injuries, Angel couldn’t help but smile slightly at the sight of two people who, even amid the chaos that came from fighting evil, had managed to find happiness together.

If only he’d managed to have that chance with Buffy…

Then he realised that Piper was looking inquiringly at him again, and he snapped his attention back to the present; they had business to attend to right now.

“Um… who are you guys?” she asked, staring at Angel curiously. “What are you doing with Leo?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry; we’re the ‘Coven of Reformed Supernaturals’,” Angel explained, indicating the others on the ground; he was pleased to note that Hellboy had positioned himself between Belthazor and the Halliwells for the moment. At least _that_ little detail could be avoided until the time was right…

“The Coven of what?” Paige asked, looking at Angel curiously.

“Reformed Supernaturals, Miss… Matthews, right?” Angel asked. Paige nodded, and Angel continued. “After you were captured, Leo contacted the Elders to get help getting you out, but since this place can’t be penetrated by good magic, he contacted us; an assortment of beings who are _meant_ to evil, but became good due to outside influences.”

He paused for a moment, and then pointed over at the still-unconscious Constantine, currently slumped over the equally out-of-it Spike. “Well, except for him; he’s just a human who can see demons where others can’t, but since he nearly went to Hell after he tried to kill himself, he still counted as dark enough to get through the barrier.”

“Ah…” Paige said, nodding in understanding as she looked at Angel. “So, what went wrong? I mean, I’m guessing that getting chucked in a cell _wasn’t_ part of the plan?”

Angel shook his head. “No, it wasn’t; three of us apparently got taken down by Cole because they didn’t know to be looking for him, and the rest of us…”

He indicated Phoebe, still slumped in her sister’s arms. “We couldn’t continue without Phoebe getting killed; we had to stop the fight.”

“Ah,” Piper said, looking over at Phoebe in understanding.

Then a thought seemed to occur to her, and she looked back at Angel.

“How’d you get in here?” she asked. “I thought this place could only be reached by shimmering?”

Angel looked over at Hellboy inquiringly, and, after the two of them had exchanged nods, Hellboy coughed slightly to draw attention to himself as he took up the ‘story’.

“Well, we had some help,” he said, as he moved to step aside. “I think you know him….”

* * *

  
Piper froze at the sight in front of her and her sisters now.

“What the… _Belthazor_!” she said, looking around at the rest of the Coven in shock. “What… what’s _he_ doing here? He’s _dead_!”

“The Elders summoned him from the past, as far as we’ve been able to gather,” Angel explained, looking over at the two of them as Leo and Phoebe finally began to regain consciousness. “Trust me, he’s dependable; he tackled his future self while we tried to take down his army. He won’t betray you.”

“Oh, well, no offence, but he already _did_ once!” Paige said, looking over at Angel in anger. “How do we know he won’t do it again!”

“He won’t…” Phoebe gasped, as she leant up, looking around at her sisters as she spoke. Piper and Paige moved as though to help her, but she waved them back as she looked at Paige, the better to get her point across. “He had the _perfect_ chance to immobilise… Cole… and he didn’t take it because it would put me in danger.”

She stood up, and looked over at Piper as she finished. “He’s not the Source, Piper. We can rely on him.”

Piper was about to say something, but stopped when she saw Phoebe’s eyes.

They were so… _sincere_.

She truly believed what she was saying.

Even after everything Cole had done to her towards the end... she believed that _this_ him was sincere.

How could Piper pay her back with disbelief?

She nodded. “OK,” she said, shooting a brief look at Paige to make it clear that- in this case- what she said went. “We’ll trust him.”

She sighed as she glanced around at their surroundings. “Not that it’ll make much difference; we’re still trapped.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’ll be much of an issue once we’re all up,” Blade said, smiling slightly as he glanced around the room at the others. “After all, we’ve all made names for ourselves back home; the cell hasn’t been _built_ that can hold _all_ of us…”

“Quite,” Angel said, as he looked around at the other Coven members. “Let’s get down to business; we’ve got to get out of here before Cole starts something that we _can’t_ stop.”


	10. Vision and Donation

“Bloody hell…” Spike muttered to himself, as he slowly blinked his eyes open. “That’s the last time I trust _anyone_ I’ve only just met…”

“Any chance you’d be willing to give me a second chance?” a voice said from above him.

Spike’s eyes snapped open to stare into Cole Turner’s face.

“ _You sodding BASTARD_!” he yelled at the half-demon as the man reeled back, blood leaking from a split lip. “You bloody _BACKSTABBER_! We’ve got enough problems already, and you go and-”

Spike suddenly felt something grab his arm as he raised it to punch Cole again. Looking in the direction of the arm, he saw Angel holding the arm, and looking at Spike with a fixed gleam in his eyes.

“Don’t,” he said. “It wasn’t Cole who attacked you; we’re dealing with a future version of him. Taking him out won’t accomplish anything.”

Spike glared at Angel for a few moments, but then relaxed and stepped back, unclenching his fist as he looked at Cole stagger back to his feet before glancing back at Angel.

“You know, if it’s his future self we’re tackling, couldn’t we just take _him_ out and stop this before it starts?”

“ _No_.”

Angel didn’t say anything else, but Spike knew that expression on his grandsire’s face; it didn’t bode any argument.

“Besides, apparently part of the spell that brought him here shifted him into some kind of ‘maybe’ timeline, as far as we can gather from what Leo told us,” another voice said. Spike glanced over in the direction of the speaker, and saw Constantine slumped in one corner, rubbing at a nasty cut over his left eye. “Basically means that, until he gets back to the past, there’s no guarantee he’s not just an _alternate_ past Cole rather than _the_ past Cole.”

He raised his crucifix-shaped shotgun, and shrugged. “Well, we’ll manage, I guess; I’ve outsmarted worse guys than him in my time.”

“Oh yeah; you managed to get Satan to let you live again, didn’t you?” Spike said, looking back at Constantine.

Constantine briefly looked at Spike in a confused manner, but then realisation dawned and he shook his head.

“Actually, I was referring to managing to stop Mammon coming through; the whole point with the Satan thing was that I _wasn’t_ planning it,” he said to the vampire. “If I _had_ been trying to get him to heal me, I’d be down in Hell right now; the whole point about Satan healing me was that he didn’t want me to get into Heaven.”

* * *

  
“Um, excuse me?” Piper said, raising her hand. “As fascinating as it is to hear about what you guys get up to in your spare time, we’ve got a bad guy to stop right now?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Constantine said, looking over at Piper with a slightly sheepish grin. “Started to tend to jabber a bit when I’m nervous; still haven’t quite gotten used to a lack of nicotine to calm me down.”

“You used to smoke?” Paige asked, looking over at Constantine. “Didn’t the nicotine have a negative impact on your magic?”

Constantine shrugged. “We all have our habits, Miss… Matthews, right?” he said to her. “And magic changes across realities; just because your magic is affected by your physical state doesn’t mean mine is.”

He shrugged. “‘Course, the cancer was a problem near the end, but I got-”

“GAGH!” Angel suddenly yelled, interrupting their discussion as he dropped to his knees, clutching his forehead as though something was trying to blow the head apart from the inside.

“Angel!” Leo yelled, as he dashed towards his old friend, crouching down beside him as he glanced up at Spike. “Does this happen often?”

“No,” Spike said, staring at his sire in confusion. “Actually, I don’t recall this _ever_ happening since I’ve known him…”

Then, as suddenly as he’d collapsed, Angel was back on his feet, and looking over at Piper and Leo in horror.

“We have a new problem,” he said simply.

* * *

  
There was a momentary pause, and then Spike broke the silence.

“What the bloody hell was _that_ all about?” he asked, staring at Angel in confusion. “I thought the bloody Prom Queen wannabe was the one who had the visions; you said you only got the one!”

“Actually, that’s not quite accurate,” Angel said, looking back at Spike. “I’ve only had that one until now, yes, but that was only because it was a major vision that would affect the outcome of the world; Cordelia apparently managed to make a deal with the Powers that I’d only have one if it was an absolutely serious problem.”

“Um… excuse me?” Phoebe said, looking at Angel curiously. “Are you saying that what just happened to you… was a vision?”

Angel nodded. “But not really the same as yours; I get my visions from the Powers That Be, while you get yours from the Elders of Wicca.”

“The difference being?” Paige asked.

“Well, the Powers are basically omnipotent observers that only communicate with vague impressions through their seers, while the Elders take a more active approach at communicating with their chosen warriors,” Angel explained, as he looked over at Leo. “Is that about right?”

“Pretty much,” Leo replied, before Hellboy interjected.

“As fascinating as this is, maybe we could look a bit more at the _how_ part of this?” he asked, looking over at Angel and Spike. “From what you two said, this only happens when it’s something _seriously_ major?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Angel said, nodding.

“So, what is it?” the red demon asked. “The evil model got something planned that we don’t know about?”

“No, he was mentioned, but he wants nothing that we don’t already know about; to alter time so that he can get Phoebe back and rule the Underworld, that sort of thing,” Angel said, as he looked over at Piper. “Our problems are a bit more personal for you two.”

“What?” Piper asked, looking at Angel nervously. “What is it?”

Angel swallowed. “Gideon wants to kill Wyatt.”

“WHAT!” Leo said, as he walked forward to look Angel directly in the eyes. “You’re lying! Why would he do that to my son?”

“As far as I could make out, he thinks that Wyatt’s too powerful to be allowed to live,” Angel explained, as he looked at the other members of the Coven to make sure they were getting this. “He thinks he’s serving the purpose of good by killing him now, before he grows up and becomes too powerful to stop.”

“Hold on a minute here,” Blade said, looking over at Leo and Angel for clarification. “Gideon? As in the Gideon that recruited us?”

“Exactly,” Angel said, nodding in acknowledgement at Blade. “That’s part of the reason he made Leo a member of the Coven; there are other Whitelighters who can put up a better fight, but he needed Leo out of the way so that Wyatt wouldn’t be as well-protected.”

“OK…” Hellboy said, nodding slightly as he looked at Angel. “So, basically, he’s trying to kill Leo’s kid ‘cause he thinks the guy’s going to be too powerful in the future and might be dangerous?”

“‘Guy’ is a bit extreme; Wyatt isn’t even one year old yet!” Piper said, as she looked over at the hybrid, already starting to get into a panic.Blade growled low in his throat as he reached behind his back and pulled out his sword before turning to face Angel.

“There’s an innocent baby in danger, and we’re standing around here, why?” he asked his new friend.

“ _Because there is no way out of this room; I have been trying every possible means at my disposal to get through this door,_ including _my power to turn into mist, and nothing has worked as of yet_ ,” Batman said from where he was standing at the door that marked the only visible means of entry or exit to their cell. “ _Since this door is obviously immune to magic, otherwise we would not have found the Halliwells still in here when we arrived, I am at a loss as to how we can escape_.”

“Well, actually, I have an idea about that,” Paige said, as she looked over at Angel, Spike, Blade and ‘Batman’. “But before I mention it, I need to know something; if you guys bite someone, do they automatically become vampires?”

“Nope,” Spike said.

“Definitely not; you’d need to drink some of _our_ blood as well,” Angel said.

“Can’t happen even if I was a full-vampire; same rule applies for me as well as for them,” Blade added, jerking a finger at Angel and Spike.

‘Batman’ sighed regretfully. “ _For me, that restriction does not apply. For my victims, my bite is a mixture of two evils; if the victim does not turn into a vampire after I have bit them, it is because they have been decapitated before they could rise_.”

“Well, that’s still three of you; it’ll work,” Paige said, looking at the relevant three. “You see, this room _is_ magically protected, but it only stops _us_ from using our powers. An incident involving a doctor a couple of years before I met them led to Piper and Phoebe learning that our powers are in our blood, so…”She looked inquiringly at the three vampires for a moment, until Angel twigged on what she was suggesting.

“You want us to drink your blood so we can use your powers to cast a spell to escape?” he asked. “Isn’t that a bit… extreme?”

“He has a point, Paige; I mean, the doctor who got our powers was killed by them because he couldn’t handle them,” Phoebe put in, looking over at her younger sister. “What if the same thing happens to these guys?”

“It wouldn’t,” Leo put in. “Giving a mortal the powers of a witch is like giving him a virus; the body collapses because it can’t support the excess DNA in its system. But for vampires like Angel and Blade, their immune systems would deal with foreign bodies relatively easily; any powers they gain from drinking your blood will eventually dissipate after a brief time, depending on how often they use their borrowed powers.”

“So, the plan could work?” Phoebe asked, looking at Leo inquiringly.

“Yeah,” Leo said, nodding at his sister-in-law before looking at the three vampires. “So, who gets who?”

“Which one can blow things up?” Blade asked.

“That’s me,” Piper said, raising her hand.

“I’ll take that power,” Blade said, trying to sound light-hearted at the whole idea. Only a slight tensing of his muscle revealed to anyone that he was repulsed by the idea of having to drink blood; clearly his vampire instincts were an issue for him. “You guys?”

Spike and Angel looked at Paige, Phoebe, and each other, before Spike groaned, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a coin.

“Bloody stupid way to settle something like this, but let’s toss for it,” he said, looking at Angel. “Heads you’re Paige, tails I am.”

He flicked the coin into the air, grabbed it, slapped it down onto the palm of his hand, and glanced at it.

“Heads,” he said, looking up at Angel.

The three vampires turned to look at their respective witches and swallowed.

“Um… you’re _sure_ you’re OK with this?” Angel said to Paige, as he, Blade and Spike moved up to their chosen ‘donors’.

“This _is_ our only option, Angel,” Paige said, as she tilted her neck slightly to allow him better access. “Just make it quick, OK?”

Angel nodded as he bent forward, his teeth digging slightly into Paige’s neck as he took brief sips of her blood, giving it a few seconds before pulling back; if he’d worked it out right, that should be enough to let him use her powers without leaving her so weak that she couldn’t operate at her peak in a fight. Looking over at Blade and Spike, he was relieved to see that they were doing the same; if so many of them had the same idea, it was probably the right one.

“Right then,” Spike said, sounding almost forcibly cheery as he tried to put what they’d just done out of his mind, “what now? Any spells in mind?”

“Just this,” Phoebe said, passing a piece of paper to Angel. “It’s not much, but we’ve used worse; we’ve used it in the past.”

“Right then,” Angel said, as he, Blade and Spike gathered in front of the door, raising their right hands as the three of them read the spell in Angel’s left.

“ _Door unlock,  
_ _No magic block_.”

A bolt of golden energy shot from the hands of the three vampires, and the door vanished.

“It worked!” Piper yelled, hugging Leo in celebration as the other Coven members gave each other high fives, although Spike gave Illyria a brief hug before realising what he’d done.

“OK, let’s get moving,” Angel said, as he looked around at the Coven. “Spike, Hellboy, Illyria, Constantine; you four are in charge of making sure the remaining demons in this base are kept busy. Leo, you, Piper, Paige and Phoebe have to try and find your way to Gideon and stop him before he kills Wyatt. Batman, Blade, Cole, you’re with me; we’re going after… well, the _other_ Cole.”

“What?” Piper said, looking at Angel in surprise. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you? I mean, I’ve got the best offensive magical power, surely I’d-”

Angel held up one hand.

“No, Piper,” he said to her. “You’d be an asset, I admit, but you’d be worried about your son throughout the fight; you need to be where you want to be right now. Blade still has your powers for a short while; he’ll be fine.”

Then Angel smiled briefly at the Coven, trying to reassure them. “Don’t worry; I have a plan.”

“Just one minor detail about your team division, Angel,” Constantine said, raising his hand.

“Yes?” Angel asked, looking over at the occult detective.

“I think I should go with the Charmed Ones,” Constantine explained. “The others should stay where they are, but I’m more familiar with adversaries that use magic rather than brute strength; I’m not very good at dealing with something that uses its brawn far more than its magic.”

Angel nodded at Constantine’s comment. “Good point, John. Just one question; think you can handle something that’s basically a rogue angel?”

Constantine smiled as he reached into his jacket and pulled out a large silver set of knuckledusters.

“Been itching to try these things out for ages,” he said, smiling at his new friends. “They were forged from the thirty pieces of silver given to Judas Iscariot after he betrayed Jesus; highly effective against _anything_ naturally good. Got them after my encounter with Gabriel, and I’ve been waiting for a chance to use them ever since.”

Angel nodded. “Right,” he said, as he turned to look at the Coven members. “Let’s go; we’ve got some demons to stop.”


	11. War is Declared

“So, which way do we go from there?” Piper asked, indicating the door that seemed to be the only means of actually leaving this part of the building.

“What, you couldn’t just whip up a spell to point us in the right direction?” Spike asked the oldest Halliwell, raising a casual eyebrow. “I thought you three were supposed to be the world’s most powerful witches?”

“ _Spike_ ,” Leo said, glaring over at his teammate, “we _can’t_ use magic right now; it’s too dangerous. There were a ton of anti-magic barriers in the cell, so Cole’s unlikely to have had any detector spells around there, but outside? He’d want to make _absolutely_ sure nobody else could get in here without being detected; warriors for good might have been able to get through the barrier, but they couldn’t shield its normal combat magic. If the sisters use any magic at the moment, we lose the element of surprise!”

“Are the detectors another reason you chose us for this mission?” Hellboy put in, raising his hand. “You know, the fact that we all rely more on physical strength than magic?”

Leo nodded. “Yeah; the Elders figured that using reformed spell casters was too risky; the _magic_ might not have ‘reformed’ even if its user had, but they weren’t prepared to take that chance.”

“Well, fascinating as this is, we need to get moving,” Angel said, as he glanced over at Cole. “Do you think you can direct us out of here?” he asked. “After all, this _is_ you we’re tracking; can you… detect _him_ … or something?”

Cole shrugged. “Maybe…” he said, as he closed his eyes and raised his hands. “There is one little trick that I’ve never tried; kind of shimmering and telepathy combined…”

“Isn’t that a bit risky?” Leo put in; evidently, he knew what Cole was planning, even if the others didn’t. “What if he detects you?”

“Leo,” Cole said, opening his left eye to look at his friend, “detection’s only a concern if the demons involved are close to each other in power. I can produce energy balls, shimmer, and shapeshift between my human and demon forms. _He_ , from what I understand, possesses pretty much every demonic power you can think of, along with a few extras that certainly aren’t the norm.”

He shrugged slightly as he closed his eye again. “Our power levels don’t have that much in common, do they?”

“Gotta admit, he has a point,” Constantine said, looking over at Leo. “Don’t like the fact that we’re so outmatched, but his reasoning why we won’t be discovered seems sound enough.”

“Thank you,” Cole said, nodding gratefully at the psychic before closing his eyes and tilting his head back. “Now, just give me peace and quiet for a few moments; this may take a while.”

Following his advice, the Coven and the Charmed Ones stood there for a few moments, nervously awaiting a response, and then Cole’s eyes popped open, and he smiled.

“He’s down the way; only a few doors away,” he said, smiling in relief, before he turned to look at the Halliwells, Leo, and Constantine. “The main exit to the fortress is there as well; you can get out that way to rescue Wyatt while the rest of us handle the demons.”

“Right then,” Spike said, smiling as he reached into his coat and pulled out another weapon, this one a long, sharp silver dagger; evidently, when FutureCole had knocked him out, he hadn’t bothered to search the vampire for anything smaller than two feet. “Let’s just blow this thing and go home.”

As the Coven headed out of the door and began to run down the corridor, ‘Batman’ leading the way to provide advance warning of any approaching demons, Angel looked over curiously at Spike.

“Was that a coincidence, or did you just quote from _Star Wars_?” he asked his friend curiously.

Spike shrugged. “What? The stupid kid dragged me off to the _Star Wars_ marathon when they had that Two for One offer and nobody else was available-”

“And, let me guess, you liked _A New Hope_ best, right?” Angel said, smiling at Spike casually. “You never did have much taste…”

“Oh, and _you_ did?” Spike asked, looking back at his sire mockingly. “What was your favourite film trilogy again? Oh yeah; _Indiana Jones_!”

Angel opened his mouth, but then Blade spun around and glared at the other two vampires.

“Can we focus right now?” the dark-skinned hybrid growled. “When we get out of this, _then_ we’ll debate our favourite movies.”

Then, as the three vampires started to walk again, Blade smiled slightly. “Besides, I always preferred _The Matrix_ myself.”

“With that coat, why am I not surprised…?” Spike muttered under his breath.

“You know, you wear pretty much the same coat, Spike,” Blade pointed out, glancing over at the peroxide-haired vampire. “You can’t just _assume_ my fashion sense dictates what movies I like.”

Spike just groaned and kept on running.

Angel and Blade glanced over at each other, and Angel shrugged helplessly before they continued on after the other Coven members.

* * *

  
Cole smiled as he looked around at the army that he had gathered to him; demons of every make, from different walks of life, different methods… some even from different _realities_.

It hadn’t been easy, but, finally, he’d achieved his goal. Here, in this vast cavern, which could easily have held the army of the dead from _The Lord of the Rings_ trilogy and still have enough room to hold several trolls, was gathered the greatest army of darkness ever created…

And it had been created by him.

Unbidden, an old Bible quote rose up in his mind, and he smiled slightly at how appropriate it was in this instance.

“ _And God was pleased with what He saw_ …” he mused to himself, nodding thoughtfully as he raised one hand and flexed his fingers. He could almost _feel_ the power that was contained in this room, in all these demons before him…

And all of them feared _him_.Which was just as it should be.

“My followers!” he said, raising one hand in a commanding gesture as he stood in his throne. “Your devotion to me shall now be rewarded! The Champions of the Elders have fallen; those who were here to save them have been captured; what is left to stop us? The Slayers? HAH! They merely possess strength; even an _army_ of them cannot stand against our magical might! The other witches? After the Charmed Ones, even the best of the witches are easy to defeat! Who is left to stand against us!”

Then the door to the hall crashed open and an army of bats tore through it, led by a large, monstrous bat with a tattered cape flying from its neck, and followed closely by a gathering that included three witches, three vampires, a psychic, an ‘angel’, two half-breed demons, and at least one extremely angry pure-blooded demon.

Cole’s face paled as he stared at the new arrivals, but he quickly recovered; he wouldn’t allow himself to be intimidated by these second-rate fools who couldn’t cope with something as simple as being _evil_!

“So, you got out of the cell then?” he asked, looking at Angel and his past self specifically; he knew that it would be hard to intimidate the Charmed Ones no matter how much power he had, but the ‘leader’ of this so-called ‘Coven’ and the man/demon that he had once been were other matters. “And can I ask what you expect to accomplish with this rather foolish stunt?”

* * *

  
“Your death, for one thing,” Angel said, looking back at his nemesis with an intensity that he wished he felt. He was quietly confident that his plan would work, but the question was if he’d last long enough to put it into practise. After all, it _was_ a fairly substantial amount of power…

 _No_ , Angel thought to himself, as he kept on staring at Cole.

The plan would work.It had to.

He’d do this last act, and then…

Well, he’d see what happened to him when the time came.

“You’re powerful, yeah, but we’ve tackled tough suckers like you on our own and lived to talk about it,” Angel continued, the other Coven members shifting into combat positions as Cole just stared at them; evidently his forces didn’t want to attack them until Cole himself gave the order to do so. “Why shouldn’t we all be capable of stopping you if we work together?”

“Because you’ve got other problems to deal with,” Cole replied. Then he glanced around the room at his own forces, and smiled. “Kill them.”

The demons began to advance towards them.

* * *

  
As the demons began to move, the Coven members instantly changed positions, Hellboy taking his position at the front of the group. Lowering his head, his stone arm outstretched in a fist, he charged forward, knocking the demon aside like a bowling ball knocking down pins; these demons were from Cole and Angel’s reality, and thus were far easier to knock down than the kind Hellboy normally encountered.

Behind him, Constantine had whipped out the Holy Shotgun and was firing away at the oncoming demons, while Belthazor and Piper used energy balls and their explosion powers to blow up any that got too close. The other Coven members mainly fought the demons by grabbing the nearest weapon from a demon and then starting to use it against the former owners.

* * *

  
“There’s too many of them!” Paige yelled, desperately hacking away at random with a small axe she’d managed to acquire. “We can’t last forever!”

“We don’t need to; once I get to Cole, it should all be over!” Angel yelled back at her, as he lashed out with a powerful kick at an oncoming Mohra demon, shattering the gem on its forehead as he grabbed the sword in its hands.

“Look, I know this part of the mission is important, but the Halliwells and I need to get going; Wyatt needs us!” Constantine yelled over at the Halliwells, as he took advantage of a momentary reprieve in the action to slip on his gold knuckleduster. He knew that they wouldn’t do much damage to the army around him, as the knuckledusters had been ‘developed’ with a different kind of demon in mind, but it was enough to give his punches a significantly greater amount of force behind them than they would have had otherwise. “Couldn’t you… I dunno, orb us to the door or something?”

“Cole’s got spells around this place that prevent orbing from working!” Leo yelled, from where he was trading blows with something that reminded Constantine of a soldier demon he’d exorcised a while back. “Don’t you think I would have already tried orbing as soon as I got out of the cell? Nothing happened! We have to get _outside_!”

* * *

  
“ _Then hang on_ ,” a voice said to the three witches.

To the shock of the Charmed Ones, they suddenly found themselves surrounding by a mass of bats, some kind of claws grasping the backs of their necks as they found themselves flying towards the door, Leo and Constantine hanging on to a tattered blue object that was flapping behind them….

Phoebe realised it first.

“Batman?” she asked, staring up at the vampire vigilante of Gotham in surprise.

“ _You were expecting that Cole had hired Dracula_?” Batman asked, as he dropped the group to the ground in front of the main door. “ _I assure you, that foe is, mercifully, beyond the reach of even Cole, no matter how much power he has amassed_.”

“Right…” Piper said, as she glanced around the hall; demons were already coming in their direction, but they still had a few moments before anyone reached them.

“We have to go,” she said, looking over at Batman. Impulsively, not giving herself time to thinka bout his decayed appearance, she leaned over and kissed the ex-Dark Knight Detective on the cheek.

“Thank you,” she whispered, before the five of them stepped out of the door and onto the steps outside the fortress. Leo grasped Piper and Phoebe’s hands, Paige took Constantine’s right hand in her left, and the two Whitelighters orbed out, taking the others with them.

* * *

  
‘Batman’ briefly looked at the area where they had once been, and smiled slightly as he raised his hand to the cheek that Piper had kissed him on.He smiled slightly.

 _Maybe I actually_ can _achieve redemption_ … he thought to himself.Then he turned around and swung back into battle, lashing away at the oncoming demons. Whatever his future was, right now, his life was this battle.

He’d save the day, _then_ starting thinking about what he’d do afterwards.

* * *

  
“Angel!” Belthazor yelled over to the vampire, ducking under a swipe from a large turtle-like demon as an energy ball eliminated a vampire that had nearly gotten in a lucky blow. “Whatever you’re planning, could you do it soon? We’re running out of energy here; adrenaline will only take you so far!”

Angel didn’t reply to Belthazor’s yelling; he merely nodded as he turned to look at the centre of the room, where Cole was standing, looking serenely around at the carnage before him, apparently just waiting for someone to fight him.

Angel didn’t intend to disappoint. Kicking out one last time at the demon nearest him (Which he vaguely identified as a Fyarl), he leapt into the air, spread his arms out, closed his eyes as he began to fall back to the ground…

Then, after a swirl of white light and a momentary feelings of incredible, blissful peace, Angel was standing behind Cole.

For a moment, Angel grinned. He’d been worried about _that_ stage of the plan ever since he’d figured out that Leo and Paige couldn’t orb, but he’d taken a gamble and assumed that it only prevented _Whitelighters_ from orbing; evidently that restriction didn’t apply to someone who was borrowing the powers in question.

Cole turned around to look at Angel, but, before the demon could do anything, Angel had lashed out with a powerful punch at his foe’s face, sending the demon staggering back, dazed, with a broken nose.

“You’re _dead_ , you bastard,” Angel said, as Cole stared back at him.

Then he lunged for the demon’s neck, bit down sharply, and began to drink Cole’s blood.

* * *

  
Belthazor winced slightly at the psychic scream that suddenly tore through his head, but, despite the pain, he couldn’t help but grin. That kind of ‘scream’ could only be coming from his future self, which meant that Angel’s plan was working…

Then he looked up, saw exactly what Angel was _doing_ to his other self, and his face fell.

“NO!” he yelled, as he instantly shimmered away from his current location…


	12. Talking of Death

Angel felt something crash into him from the left, and cursed; it looked like the initial plan had failed. One of Cole’s followers must have worked out what he was doing…

Then he realised that the person holding him down was Belthazor.

“What the hell!” he said, looking between Belthazor and Cole, whose neck injuries were already starting to heal, before settling his gaze on Belthazor. “What are you doing! I HAD HIM!”

Belthazor didn’t bother to talk; he just grabbed Angel’s wrist, there was a momentary feeling of being squeezed down and sucked backwards through a tap, and then they were standing in an empty corridor, much like the ones they’d been walking through earlier, facing each other as though they were about to fight. However, the potential combat never took place; Belthazor merely stared at Angel angrily before he shifted back into Cole.

“Oh, you had him, all right; you just didn’t seem to care about the consequences of what you were planning!” he yelled at the vampire, apparently not bothered in the slightest about the possibility of them being found (Then again, practically every demon in this fortress would most likely be involved in the battle in the main hall, so that was unlikely to be an issue).

“What are you talking about; everything was under control!” Angel yelled back, looking almost ready to hit Cole as they spoke. “I’d drain your future self’s blood, gain his powers, use them against him-”

“Oh, _shut UP_!” Cole yelled back, cutting off Angel in mid-sentence. “We both know that the only reason my future self hasn’t been _annihilated_ by the power he’s got these days is both the fact that he’s _used_ to holding that kind of power and the fact that he absorbed them one at a time! You take even _half_ of his powers into you at once, and you’ll be annihilated before you can so much as _blink_ , never mind attack him with them! The only way you’d _kill_ him would be because the explosion when YOU died _would take him with you_! _WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING_!”

“WHAT DO YOU THINK!” Angel yelled back at his new friend, deciding that there was no point in being secretive. “I WANTED TO _DIE_ , CAN’T YOU SEE THAT! I LED HALF OF MY CLOSEST FRIENDS TO THEIR DEATHS, THE REMAINING HALF ARE THE ONES I’M NOT ALL THAT CLOSE TO ANYWAY, AND THE WOMAN I LOVE IS SHAGGING THE FUCKING _IMMORTAL_! WHAT HAVE I GOT LEFT TO LIVE FOR!”

“ _EVERYTHING_!” Cole yelled back at Angel, launching a brief punch at the vampire that threw his head off to one side (Albeit mostly from the surprise of the blow rather than the force behind it; no matter how strong he was, Cole was nowhere near physically powerful enough to do damage to a vampire of Angel’s age).

As Angel looked back up at Cole, eyes blazing with a mix of confusion and anger, Cole, now slightly calmer, began to talk again; evidently, this time he was trying to stay in control of his emotions to make sure that Angel got the point he was trying to make.

“Angel, no matter how bad things seem, you can’t just give up because you can only see the bad side of things at the immediate moment,” he said, glaring at the vampire with a face that might as well have been set in stone. It was the expression of a man who knew what he wanted to say to you and wouldn’t stop until he’d got it out. “Look, I’m not denying that things seem like complete and utter _shit_ to you right now, but you can’t just give up on life just because of some unfortunate incidents-”

“Unfortunate?” Angel asked, looking at incredulously. “I’ve lost everything I ever wanted, Cole! The love of my life is doing a complete _bastard_ , my closest friends are almost all dead, and I had to sign away my prophesised humanity just to show a bunch of god-like beings of unimaginable evil- for a few _fucking MOMENTS_ \- that they didn’t control everything! UNFORTUANTE IS HARDLY THE WORD I WOULD USE!”

Cole growled in his throat as he stared at Angel, as though unable to believe the minor detail that Angel seemed to have overlooked.

“Angel,” he said, visibly making an effort to contain his rage at his leader, “I respect you as a friend even if I haven’t known you that long, but aren’t you forgetting that I have a _far_ better reason for killing myself than you ever could?”

He jerked a thumb back down a corridor, presumably in the direction of the main hall where they’d left the other members of the Coven.

“That’s _me_ we’re fighting, Angel,” he said, looking back at the vampire, his voice lower than it had been earlier, as though to better emphasise his next point. “Don’t you get it? That’s _me_ , or at least an alternate me. You heard Leo; that could turn out to be either an alternate version of my future self, or it could just as easily become my _actual_ future self. I just don’t know whether or not the future will be that bad…”

He sighed briefly, and then looked up at Angel with a glare.

“Don’t you think I thought about killing myself when I saw that guy sitting up in his throne, lording it over an army of monsters?” he said, his eyes locked on the vampire. “Believe me, I considered doing it. Even if I didn’t do it right then, then I’d do it once we’d taken him out, to ensure that I could never become him myself.”

Swallowing, he looked at Angel again, locking eyes with the vampire as he spoke.

“But I didn’t,” he said to the vampire, as he placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I _couldn’t_. And I’m not going to do it either. No matter how bad things may be in the future, I know that there will good moments in it as well as the dark ones. I know that, whatever else happens, the Power of Three will remain strong; I know that Leo, Piper, Phoebe and Paige will have a good life, and I know that demons will fall before them.”

He smiled slightly as he looked at Angel. “Who knows; maybe having to fight me made them stronger?”

He transformed back into Belthazor, and looked back at Angel with a raised eyebrow.

“Think about it, Angel,” he said. “Whatever bad thing happens in your life today, there is always hope for a better time tomorrow.”

Then he shimmered away, leaving Angel staring in front of him with an almost vacant expression as he considered Cole’s speech.

Did he still have _something_ to live for?

Even if he seemed to have lost everything he’d spent the last few years trying to create?

* * *

  
As soon as Belthazor had reappeared in the throne room, he was relieved to see that all the Coven were still standing, although the number of demons in the room seemed to be staying the same no matter how many monsters were taken out by the Coven members…

Then his eyes fell on his future self, about to throw an energy ball at Spike, and he was back in action.

“Hey, Cole!” he yelled, trying not to think about how weird it was to be calling someone else Cole; he’d never encountered _anyone_ else with that name in his life…

As his future self turned to look at him, Belthazor smiled and raised his right hand, already forming an energy ball in it.

“Think fast,” he said simply, as the two of them locked eyes before the ball was released, hurtling towards the other demon at a speed that would have made sound look slow…

Then Cole reached out and caught it out of the air as though it were just a baseball. Looking at the ball in his hand, he smiled slightly, and then glanced back up at Belthazor.

“Nice try,” he said, grinning at his past self as though the man had just told him a good joke.

Then the grin fell and he raised one hand, holding the ball in question.

“But it wasn’t good enough,” he said simply.

Then he threw the ball out of his hand. It hurtled towards Belthazor, barely leaving the half-demon with enough time to shimmer to a position nearer to his future self, leaving the ball to strike a nearby golem with such force that half the stone warrior’s head was shattered.

As Cole turned to face his younger self, Belthazor knew he would only have a few moments to retaliate before his future self was in a good position to strike back. Desperately, the red-skinned demon launched a punch at his future self, but his foe just stepped off to one side, dodging the punch as though it had been in slow motion, and smiling slightly at Belthazor. Outraged, Belthazor launched another punch at his other self, but Cole, now as casual as though he’d just spent the day relaxing and watching television, simply raised his right hand and caught the demon’s wrist.

“Game over, Belthazor,” he said, smiling slightly at the demon’s shocked expression. “I saw that one coming from over a year away.”

Then he twisted the arm around behind Belthazor’s back with such speed and ferocity that a sharp _crack!_ was heard as the demon’s collar bone was broken.

Belthazor roared in anguish and pain- a harsh, animalistic roar that resounded through the hall- even as he knew that it was pointless, that everyone else in the Coven was occupied with their own battles, that nobody could spare even the time to look in his direction and find out what was wrong…

“You time-hopping, red-skinned idiot,” Cole almost whispered to him as he began to force Belthazor to his knees before, the younger demon trying to maintain eye contact with his foe even as he began to crouch down. “Did you _honestly_ think you’d just dive in here and triumph, waving your foolish belief in the ‘power of _good_ ’ around like some kind of stupid standard?”

He laughed once, and Belthazor couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the way his future self was acting. Honestly, he was starting to remind Belthazor of their old mentor on his worst days…

Then Cole twisted the arm back even further, and Belthazor collapsed to the ground in agony.

“You’re out of your league, Turner,” he hissed at Belthazor, as the demon looked up to realise he was almost at eye-level with Cole’s crotch. “And you’re out of your place; you’ve started getting ideas above your station. I mean, daring to challenge a _God_? Your arrogance beggars belief!”

Then he smiled once more. “But I’m going to _put_ you in your place, Turner,” he said, as he grabbed Belthazor’s other arm and began to twist it back as well. “I’m going to-”

“ _Sing soprano, motor-mouth_!” Belthazor yelled, as he lunged forward, seizing the chance of his other self’s hands now being occupied, and bit down hard on Cole’s trousers, directly between the legs.

“AARRGGHH!” Cole screamed, releasing his grip on Belthazor’s arms, throwing his arms towards where Belthazor’s neck was, as though to break it…

Or rather, where the neck _had_ been; as soon as his arms were free, Belthazor had released his grip, leapt back, and launched a powerful punch at Cole that sent the older demon staggering back from sheer surprise.

Belthazor smiled as he looked down at his older self, now clutching a bleeding lip as he stared back at his younger self.

“You seem to have forgotten, _Turner_ ,” he said, enjoying to the maximum the newfound feeling of being the dominant one in their fight. “I trained as a lawyer. That means I know how to find the weaknesses in my opponent’s defences.”

Then he lashed out with a powerful kick, sending his future self flying through the air, to be intercepted by the darkly-clad, withered form of ‘Batman’.

“ _May I_?” the moulding vampire inquired, looking over in Belthazor’s direction.

“Of course,” Belthazor said, nodding at the vampire. “Why should I hog all the fun?”

Then he turned around, leapt back into the fray, and began launching energy balls right and left, each shot striking a demon with varying effects. Vampires and zombies, he noted, were incinerated instantly, while most of the other demon species (including the odd werewolf or two) were merely weakened, although more often than not one of the other Coven members then took them down while they were distracted.

* * *

  
Up in the air, meanwhile, ‘Batman’ was revelling in his newfound chance to unleash his rage on a target that he had no qualms about. Even as he’d fed on the likes of Black Mask and the Riddler back in his Gotham, he’d constantly hated himself for being so weak as to give so easily to the bloodlust, but at the same time, he’d been unable to do anything to quell his bestial urges…

But this time, he had no such qualms.

This foe wasn’t human.

He _couldn’t_ be; no human could command such a terrible army, or casually contemplate the rape and murder of a woman he claimed to love.

As ‘Batman’ plunged a claw into Cole’s chest, tearing a hunk of flesh away from his adversary, he couldn’t help but grin at the scream of anguish that resounded through the hall as a result. Just a little more, and this man would be so badly damaged that not even _his_ healing abilities could through it off easily…

Then something plunged deep into ‘Batman’s’ chest, just narrowly missing the centre of his heart. Looking down, he saw that Cole had transformed his hand into a sharp hunk of metal and had jammed it straight into his chest.

‘Batman’ winced as Cole smiled up at him, the demon already raising the other arm as the hand on it began to shimmer and change its form.

“A bold try, vampire,” he said, grinning at his adversary, who could only gasp and yell in pain as the two of them shimmered briefly and ended up standing in the middle of the room near Cole’s throne, which was somehow empty despite all the carnage being waged around it. “But not good enough.”

He drew back his other hand, now with an extremely sharp blade on it in place of his hand, and thrust it towards ‘Batman’s’ neck.

As the blade dug into the decaying flesh that held the vampire detective’s head onto his body, the last thing ‘Batman’ saw was a dark-clad form hurtling towards his new killer, with a speed and ferocity that made his earlier strikes look slow…

Then, as the ‘axe’ severed his brain from his body, the former Dark Knight Detective knew nothing else.

* * *

  
“NO!” Angel yelled, as he leapt towards Cole at his maximum speed. He’d only entered the room shortly after Cole and ‘Batman’ had shimmered to around the throne, but he’d hoped that he might still be fast enough to get to them before Cole finished the job, before he lost another friend to the evil that dwelt in the darkest corners of the world…

But, as ‘Batman’s’ head flew off into the battle, his body slumping to the ground, Angel knew, with a clarity that overwhelmed anything else he’d ever thought, that he had to win this battle.

If not for himself, than for the man that ‘Batman’ had once been; the man who’d forsaken his humanity for the sake of the city he’d sworn to protect, and who had been driven to commit atrocities thanks to a horror and a terror that even a man as skilled as he could not defeat.

 _Come what may_ , Angel vowed as he hit Cole, sending the two of them flying to the ground, locked in what could be called an embrace if the two parties weren’t glaring at each other rather than smiling, _this bastard_ is _going down_ …

 _But he’s_ not _taking me with him_.

Sticking his hand into his pocket, he was relieved to find that the power-suppressing potion Leo had given him earlier was still intact; if everything went according to plan, he’d need it in a few minutes.

“YOU!” Cole yelled, as he turned to look at Angel, who merely smiled casually at the demon’s expression of surprise; evidently, he’d been expecting the vampire to stay away after being pulled away from their past encounter.

“Me,” Angel replied, as he thrust out an arm and grabbed Cole’s throat, pinning the demon to the ground. As Cole’s hands reached for his neck, determined to pull off Angel’s own hand, the vampire just smiled again.

“Let’s do it,” he said, as he closed his eyes, focused…

And then, without any warning, the two of them had shimmered away.


	13. Constantine Versus Gideon

As the white lights faded from around them, Constantine raised a critical eyebrow at his surroundings.

He’d been expecting to see a lot of things around the area where Wyatt was being guarded; swords, locked doors, a mass of witches ready to fight anything that might be even a remote threat…

What he hadn’t been expecting was to see just a caravan, standing in the middle of a field full of other caravans. True, his powers allowed him to see the magical barriers around the caravan, but baring those barriers that there didn’t really seem to be anything around this place.

“This is it?” he asked, looking over at Leo inquiringly. “No offence, but this set-up couldn’t stop _anything_ that really wanted Wyatt for themselves.”

“The wards were mostly intended to be alarms more than anything else,” Leo explained, as the sisters started scanning the surroundings for Gideon; they knew that he couldn’t be there already, as the wards were still all intact and even an Elder going through would have disrupted them _slightly_ , but that didn’t negate the possibility that he was coming as they spoke. “The Elders assumed that, once something triggered the wards, a mass of them could come down and hold off anything that might be after Wyatt, or at least debilitate it enough for them to send it somewhere else.”

“But the alarms wouldn’t be set off by an Elder, huh?” Paige said, looking over at Leo inquiringly.

“They’d disrupt the wards, but not to the same extent that a demon would,” Leo said, as he turned to look at the caravan door. “Well, we’d better get in; we don’t know how-”

The wards around the caravan suddenly gave a brief shimmer, as though it was a river and a stone had just been dropped into the lake, and Constantine groaned.

 _That_ couldn’t be good.

“We’re out of time,” he said, as he raised his left fist and slid the silver knuckleduster onto his fingers. “You can stay out here if you want, but I’m going in now.”

Before any of them could respond, he’d walked up to the caravan door, opened it, and found himself facing a tall man dressed in a Victorian business suit facing a young woman who was holding a baby and looking at the sight before her with a mixture of fear and confusion.

“What the… Constantine?” the man said, turning to look at the supernatural detective in confusion. “Leo? What are you doing here?”

“What else?” Leo asked, as he stepped into the caravan followed by the Halliwells, all four of them glaring at Gideon in rage. “I _trusted_ you to ensure the safety of my son, Gideon, and _this_ is how you repay me? By trying to _kill_ him?”

“It’s for the best!” Gideon yelled back, although Constantine noted that he looked slightly nervous; if he was still at least slightly uncertain about his actions, maybe they could talk him down without having to get into a fight…

“The best?” Piper asked, standing in front of Constantine to glare at Gideon. “It’s ‘for the best’ to kill an innocent baby? It’s ‘for the best’ to destroy a child who’s done nothing wrong? It’s ‘for the best’ to lie to an old friend and kill his child behind his back? _How is that for the best_!”

“He’s too powerful!” Gideon protested, indicating the baby in the young woman’s arms. Constantine briefly wondered why she didn’t run, but then realised that it wouldn’t have done her any good; Gideon would grab Wyatt from her the second she came too near to him, and the caravan wasn’t wide enough for her to easily evade him. “Anything with that much power is _bound_ to turn evil! I can’t take the _risk_ , can’t you see that?”

He turned to look at Constantine. “Surely you can hardly condemn me, John?” he said, staring the ex-smoker in the eyes. “After what you did-”

“ _That was an accident_!” Constantine roared back at Gideon, trying to resist the temptation to just dive forward and punch Gideon’s lights out; they had a better chance of stopping this guy if they could just convince him that his actions were pointless…

Taking a deep breath, Constantine glared at Gideon, flexing his fingers around the knuckleduster as he maintained eye contact with the Elder.

“There is _no_ comparison between Astra and Wyatt,” he said, glaring at Gideon. “I didn’t set out to kill her, I didn’t want to hurt her, and the _only_ reason she went down was because I was such a- dratting- idiot,” he said, stopping himself before he said something smaller; he had a bit of a rule about swearing in front of little kids, even if they probably couldn’t understand him.

“Actually, I was referring to some of your past actions,” Gideon retorted, as the Charmed Ones and their allies looked at Constantine curiously as he just stood and stared at the Elder. “You never had any qualms about risking your friends if you thought that it would protect the world; why should this be any different from your past actions?”

“It still isn’t the same,” Constantine growled back at the rouge Elder. “Not only was I more than a _bit_ arrogant back then, but in those cases everyone knew the risks when they were going into the fight. Wyatt’s just a _baby_ , for- Pete’s- sake! You don’t even _know_ that something’s going to go wrong!”

”It’s basic logic!” Gideon yelled back. “Wyatt isn’t like anything this world has known; if he turns on us when he’s fully grown, _nothing_ could stop him! He has to be eliminated _now_ while it’s still possible!”

“And that excuses this?” Phoebe asked, glaring at Gideon. “Don’t you have _any_ faith in Leo and Piper’s parenting abilities? They’re good; why should a child of theirs turn out evil?”

“I can’t take the risk!” Gideon yelled back at Phoebe. “You can’t stop me!”

Then, before any of them could do something, Gideon spun around, launched a bolt of lightning at the woman holding Wyatt, started to walk towards the baby as the woman fell to the ground…

And then, with no warning, Wyatt suddenly vanished in a burst of white light.

“What the…” Constantine said, looking over at Leo in confusion.

“He orbed out!” Leo said in horror, as he looked over at Constantine and the Charmed Ones. “You three try and keep Gideon down; John, you’re with me. We have to find Wyatt before something else does!”

As Constantine felt Leo grab his hand and begin to ‘orb’ them away to another destination, he vaguely saw Piper flick her hands at Gideon in a manner that he was prepared to bet involved blowing things up (Right now she looked too annoyed to bother with _freezing_ an opponent)…

* * *

  
And then they were standing at the top of the Golden Gate Bridge, staring at Wyatt as he sat on the top of the famous landmark. He smiled at his father brightly and held out his hands, gurgling slightly.

“Hi, son…” Leo said, reaching out and taking the baby in his arms. “You’re OK now… Daddy’s got you…”

Constantine smiled at the sight before him, briefly putting his location out of his mind; ever since his little ‘fall’ when he went to Hell after his first suicide attempt, he’d always been a little uncomfortable around heights…

Then Gideon suddenly appeared in front of the three of them, now dressed in white robes, and Constantine suddenly had other concerns to occupy himself.

“Did you really think that would stop me, Leo?” Gideon asked, looking at the Whitelighter as Constantine and Leo shifted into a combat stance (Or, in Leo’s case, tried to assume a combat stance; it wasn’t easy to get ready for a fight when you were holding a baby in your arms). “You should have know that their magic wouldn’t work against me; whether or not you disagree with my motives, I am still a being of good magic, and their powers do not work against beings of good on a long-term basis.”

He glared at Leo and Wyatt. “Now, just hand over the baby, and we can end this.”

Leo was about to reply, but Constantine stepped in front of his friend and glared at his new foe.

“If you want Wyatt, you’ll have to go through me,” he said, staring at Gideon as he raised his left hand, complete with knuckleduster. “Are you _really_ ready for that?”

Gideon just stared back at Constantine for a few moments, before shaking his head in a manner that almost seemed like he was pitying Constantine.

“I don’t want to have to fight you, John,” he said, looking back at the exorcist. “This affair is not your concern.”

Constantine shook his head. “You made it my ‘concern’ when you had me brought into the Coven to help stop the bad guy,” he said, glaring back at his foe. “You’re getting Wyatt when you go through me. And that is _not_ going to happen.”

Gideon sighed as he raised his hand.

“So be it,” he said, as he stared at Constantine before launching a burst of white lightening at his foe…

Only to have Constantine thrust his left hand forward and all the lightening suddenly focus on the silver knuckleduster, leaving the knuckleduster glowing a brilliant white as Constantine stared back at Gideon.

“Nice try,” he said to the Elder, who could only stare at the glowing knuckleduster in horror as the exorcist smiled back at him. “Just wasn’t good enough.”

Before Gideon could get another blast off (There was no guarantee that the spell he’d just attempted would work a second time), Constantine had dived towards the Elder, lashed out at him with a left-handed punch that sent him reeling back, and then tackled the Elder with such force that both of them were sent hurtling _off_ the bridge.

“NO!” Constantine heard Leo cry out from behind him as he and the Elder plummeted towards the ground. Constantine knew that he probably had alternatives to stop Gideon, but right now this was all he could think of; even if it didn’t _kill_ the Elder, it might hurt him enough for Leo and the Halliwells to figure out a better alternative…

* * *

  
Then Constantine found himself lying on the floor of a stone cavern, with Gideon looking angrily at him from off to one side.

He groaned as he stood up; he should have remembered that Gideon could orb, but he’d been focusing so much on hurting his adversary that he’d forgotten to take his foe’s powers into account.

“You _dare_ try to kill _ME_!” Gideon roared as Constantine staggered back onto his feet, trying not to focus on the blinding pain in his head from where he must have hit the floor; evidently Gideon hadn’t been too bothered about giving _him_ a soft landing. “I am merely trying to protect the world- what _you CLAIM_ to do as well, I might add- and you feel you must _attack_ ME!”

Constantine merely grimaced slightly as he twisted his head and glared back at Gideon.

“I’d like to say I’m sorry, but the truth is I am really starting to dislike you and I strongly doubt that I ever will,” he said, as he glared back at Gideon. “Maybe I’m a bit old-fashioned these days, but, personally, I always prefer to _know_ that someone or something’s going to be dangerous before I dive in head-first and try to stop the ‘threat’.”

“There _will_ be a threat!” Gideon retaliated, glaring back at Constantine. “It’s a basic practice in this world; the powerful will _always_ seek to conquer those weaker than them!”

“What, so you think the kid’s _family_ will go rogue on you as well?” Constantine retaliated. “Last time I checked they were the most powerful witches in the world, and I don’t see you trying to kill _them_!”

“Their powers were awoken when they were morally capable of using them properly!” Gideon yelled at Constantine. “Give someone that much power for their whole lives and there’s no telling _what_ could have happened to them-”

“Oh, just _SHUT UP ALREADY_!” Constantine yelled at Gideon as he lashed out with another punch, this one leaving a slight burn on Gideon’s face; evidently the negative energies of the knuckleduster were starting to have an affect on the Elder. “You can’t excuse your actions and you know it! You call yourself a Higher Power? You’re just every fucking racist I’ve ever encountered; terrified of something that isn’t you and you don’t have the guts to admit it! You’ll say _anything_ to ‘justify’ how you feel except how you _really_ feel about the situation! You just can’t handle Wyatt being around because it means you’re no longer top of the pecking order; you’d rather see him eliminated now rather than leave him with Piper and Leo! _They’re_ good people; there is no _fucking REASON_ why Wyatt shouldn’t be good as well!”

He leapt forward again, pinning Gideon to the wall with his right hand and reigning punches onto him with the left. The silver knuckledusters truck Gideon all over, and where it struck his foe it left a burn, until, finally, most of Gideon’s visible skin was black and smoking from the impacts of the negative energy.

“Wait… wait…” Gideon gasped, as Constantine paused briefly to catch his breath. One side of Gideon’s face was swollen over from the physical assault on him, and the mystic-related damage wasn’t helping him either right now, but he was still healthy enough to make himself understood.

“What?” Constantine asked, glaring at Gideon at he briefly paused in his assault on the Elder. “Finally got something to justify what you want to do?”

“I have… an offer… to make to you…” Gideon gasped, as he looked at Constantine, seemingly barely able to focus through the pain. “Let me… capture Wyatt… and I will… give you… free passage… to Heaven…”

Constantine’s eyes widened as he stared at Gideon.

Access to Heaven?

For so long, that had been what he had fought for… what he’d desired… what had motivated his actions…

And now, he could get it.

All he had to do was let Gideon have what he wanted, while simultaneously betraying a person who’d been nothing but friendly to him…

 _No chance_.

Constantine turned back to look at Gideon, glared at him, and launched another series of punches, shouting after each blow;

“Fuck-”

WHAM!

“You-”

WHAM!

“ASSHOLE!”

WHAM!

With the last punch, Constantine slammed Gideon against the wall with such force that something gave off a resounding _crack!_ before Gideon’s body collapsed back onto the ground, his head at an odd angle to the rest of him.

Walking over to Gideon, Constantine bent down and waved his hand briefly over the fallen Elder. Normally he would have simply checked the pulse to determine whether he was alive or dead, rather than waste time casting a spell, but he wasn’t entirely clear on whether Whitelighters and Elders would actually _have_ pulses, so this was the only way.

He smiled slightly in relief; according to the spell, all ‘life’ had departed from Gideon’s body.

Standing up, he stretched briefly and then looked around at his surroundings. Based on earlier sightings, he was reasonably sure that he was in the Underworld of this place, but other than that he couldn’t precisely say…

Constantine shrugged; he wasn’t especially worried. Just so long as this next stage of the proceedings went according to plan, everything should work out fine…

“LEO!” he yelled, looking up at the ceiling of the chamber.

A moment later, Leo was standing in front of him, Wyatt now no longer in his arms.Leo raised a hand as Constantine began to open his mouth. “Before you ask, Wyatt’s fine; after you and Gideon vanished, I orbed back to check on Piper, Phoebe and Paige. He’s still with them.”

“Are they all…” Constantine asked, slightly nervously.

Leo smiled slightly. “They’re all fine,” he said reassuringly, clasping Constantine on the shoulder. “Gideon was demented, but he didn’t want to hurt the Charmed Ones; he just wanted Wyatt.”

He looked down at Gideon’s fallen body, and winced as he took in the damage.

“You don’t do things halfway, do you?” he said, glancing over at Constantine.

The exorcist shrugged. “Got started and just couldn’t stop until he wasn’t a threat,” he said, trying not to make a big deal of it all.

Then he held out a hand to Leo and raised an eyebrow in a quizzical manner. “So, shall we get going? After all, the Coven still probably needs our help.”

Leo nodded as he grabbed Constantine’s wrist before the two of them orbed out, leaving Gideon’s body to lie on the ground where it had fallen, already starting to blur around the edges as it lost the ability to hold itself together.

One foe of the Coven of Reformed Supernaturals had fallen.

Now it only remained to be seen if the group’s leader could do the same to their main adversary.


	14. Angel Versus Cole: Round One

As Angel blinked his eyes open and looked around himself, he was relieved to see that his gamble had paid off. As he’d rammed into Cole, he’d tapped into the powers that he’d taken from his earlier feast on  
Cole’s blood and shimmered, but had taken care not to have a specific destination in mind as he did so. Angel had gambled that, without a destination, he and Cole would merely end up in whatever pocket dimension shimmering demons travelled through, and, until someone went one way or another, stay there, unable to attack anyone but each other.

Looking around at the vast greyness that now surrounded the two of them, Angel was pleased to see that his theory appeared to have been correct.

“What the…” Cole said, as he stared at Angel incredulously. “How did you do that?”

“How else?” Angel asked, smiling as he spread his arms out to indicate their surroundings. “I used your powers, Cole- or, at least, the powers that I took from you when I drank your blood. After all, where’s the fun in an uneven fight?”

Glaring at the former half-demon, Angel shifted into a combat stance and locked eyes with Cole. “Now, are you going to give up and come quietly, or do we have to do this the hard way?”

“Don’t try it, Angel,” Cole replied, as he shifted his stance to match the vampire’s. “You may have taken on _some_ of my powers, but I’m still packing the full amount here. You’re nothing more than a Jack Russell trying to take on a Saint Bernard, as far as power is concerned; you haven’t got a hope!”

He chuckled as his eyes briefly scanned his surroundings. “Besides, aren’t you forgetting something?” he asked, as he briefly relaxed and swept his hand around the grey dimension they were now standing in. “This is my kind’s… ‘habitat’, if you will. We spend most of our time here.”

He glared back at Angel, and chuckled slightly. “Down here, I make the rules. Down here, _I_ make the ‘threats’.”

He drew one hand back and an energy ball appeared in it as he grinned wickedly at Angel. “Here… I’m God.”

He threw the ball at Angel, and…

Well, Angel wasn’t sure what happened. He didn’t move, he didn’t speak, and, looking back, he wasn’t even entirely sure if he’d even _thought_. He’d just… _decided_ , for lack of a better term, that the energy ball wouldn’t hit him, and it dissipated right in front of him.

Glaring back at Cole, Angel clenched his fists as he prepared to strike again.

Whatever kind of man Cole may once have been, whatever he might still be on some level… right now, for all intents and purposes, he was a monster.

And Angel intended to show Cole the cold-heartedness and ferocity that had made him into the Scourge of Europe before he got his soul back.

“No,” he said simply, as he looked back at Cole. “You’re deluded.”

Charging forward, Angel launched a punch at Cole’s head and smiled slightly as he felt the crunch of bone beneath his knuckles. He knew that, with Cole’s healing powers, the damage would be repaired almost instantly, but Cole would still have to deal with the pain for at least a few moments, and that could make a great deal of difference in the fight.

As Cole staggered back, clutching his now-distorted jaw as he looked back at Angel in horror, almost unable to process that Angel had dared to strike _him_ , Angel smiled at his foe.

“And you’re going to be stopped,” the vampire said, as he grabbed Cole by the throat and hauled him off his ‘feet’ (Although Angel wasn’t sure _what_ either of them were standing on right now). “Right here…”

He hit Cole’s nose with another punch, sending the demon reeling back as he clutched at his bleeding nose, and the vampire smiled.

“Right now.”

Charging forward, Angel lashed out at Cole again, smiling as he felt his fists strike his opponent. The welcoming crack and snap of bones resounded through the ‘air’ of this pocket dimension as the fight progressed, each new punch hurting Cole more and more…

“NO!” Cole yelled, as he leapt back and fired a bolt of lighting at Angel, who was only just able to escape it by raising his hand and firing off his own blast. “You can’t take me down like this! I am the most powerful magical being in the universe! You haven’t got a _prayer_ of outmatching me!”

“Oh, really?” Angel asked, as he ducked to the ground and struck with a spinning kick that knocked Cole off his feet. “You may have the advantage when it comes to long-range attacks, Cole, but _I’m_ the one with the greater physical strength! Add on my century or so of experience over you, and I think I can safely say that I’ve got the advantage in _this_ particular showdown when it comes to close quarters!”

Quickly, Angel spun around and launched a rapid uppercut at Cole that caused an extremely painful-sounding crunch from the vicinity of the jawbone that sent Cole staggering back, clutching his mouth as he appeared to be trying to get his jaw back into the right shape.

“You… you…” Cole muttered through his damaged mouth, as Angel spread his hands and began to charge an electric blast. “You broke my mouth…”

“And if you don’t stop this now, I’ll do worse than that,” Angel replied, glaring angrily at his foe, blue lightning crackled around his hands as he charged up a spell for his next strike. “Now, are you ready to give up, or does this have to get ugly?”

Cole growled in his throat as he stared back at the vampire.

“Never…” he grunted weakly. “I’ll never give up… you’ll have to kill me…”

Angel sighed as he raised his hands.

“Just remember, you caused this,” he said to the demon, before he launched the blot of lightning back at Cole…

Who just raised his hand, caught it, and then appeared to _absorb_ the energy into himself. As Angel watched in horror, unable to terminate the spell until it had run its course no matter how much he wanted otherwise, Cole’s broken jaw rapidly healed itself and he smiled casually at Angel.

“Not a bad shot, Angel,” he said casually. “I have to admit, I give you points for determination alone, if nothing else.”

As energy crackled through the air, giving Cole the appearance of some demented Dr Frankenstein, the demon smiled, apparently invigorated by the voltage flowing through him. “But, in all fairness, these are _my_ powers you’re using; do you _honestly_ think I wouldn’t be able to harness their energy for myself?”

Then, as the electric blast finally died down, Cole sighed and stared at Angel with a pitying expression.

“Why are you doing this, Angel?” he asked, looking at the vampire who had– technically; he still couldn’t remember it _himself_ \- once been his friend. “Can’t you see that what I want is to make things better?”

“What, by setting yourself up as a god and changing history to suit your own warped desires?" Angel asked, laughing harshly as he glared at Cole. "Some definition of ‘better’ for the rest of the world!”

Cole sighed. “You’re really prepared to listen to the Elders after what you ‘saw’ Gideon do?” he asked.

Noting Angel’s incredulous expression, he smiled. “Oh yes; I was aware of that. I couldn’t be certain, of course, but my little ‘security system’ detected the signal from the Powers to your cerebral cortex, and I was able to translate it at least partially by the time you and the rest of the Coven reached me.”

Angel almost asked why Cole hadn’t sent a team to stop them if he’d had an early warning of their escape, but then realised that he hadn’t. After all, just because the Coven and the Halliwells had a _better_ reason to escape than they’d had before didn’t mean that they _would_ escape; as far as Cole knew, the wards he’d erected around the cell prevented anyone in it from using their powers to get out.

“All I’m saying,” Cole continued, looking at Angel all the while, “is that you can hardly trust the _Elders_ if one of them was prepared to do something like that. How can you be sure that they told you the whole truth about me?”

Angel laughed harshly. “You want me to believe you, you shouldn’t have killed Batman,” he said harshly, staring back at Cole as he flexed his fingers, itching for another chance to attack his nemesis. “He may have been a Dracula-class vampire, but he was still a good man. You’ll need something _pretty_ convincing to make me believe what you’re doing is for the best after that!”

“All right then…” Cole said, nodding thoughtfully. “How about… _this_?”

He raised an arm, swept it in front of him in a semicircular gesture…


	15. The Last Temptation of Angel

And then, to Angel’s surprise, he was standing in the middle of a street, in the middle of the day, without any fire or burn marks on him in the least.

“What the…” he muttered, staring down at himself before scanning his surroundings. “Where am I…?”

Then his eyes fell on the street name- Revello Drive- and he became increasingly confused. After all, Sunnydale had been _destroyed_ \- pulled down into the Hellmouth when Spike sacrificed himself to stop the First’s army of Turok-han-, and yet here he was, standing in the middle of the street where Buffy had lived for nearly seven years as though nothing had happened? What was _that_ all about?

“Angel!” a voice called to him from behind. “C’mon; Kathy won’t wait for her daddy forever, you know!”

Angel froze.

 _No… It_ couldn’t _be…_

But, as he turned around, he saw that it was.

Buffy Summers, standing behind him with a smile on her face, the sun gleaming off her hair, and…

Angel’s eyes widened.

A gold wedding ring on her hand.

 _And he had one too_!

“What the…” he said, staring at his hand in confusion.

Buffy laughed, a bright, cheery sound that made Angel’s heart ache with love for her all over again.

“Are you _ever_ going to get used to it?” she asked him casually, noting his confused expression. “I mean, you’ve been human ever since I was seventeen; you’d think you’d be used to being ale to walk in the sun by now!”

“Uh… yeah…” Angel said, shaking his head and looking at Buffy. “Sorry… tuned out for a minute there. Where’s… Kathy?”

“Oh, she’s just inside with everyone else,” Buffy said, smiling broadly up at Angel. “You know how she is; give her an excuse to be doted on and she’ll use it as much as possible. She _still_ can’t get the picture that we love her just as much as Connor.”

Sighing dramatically, she hugged Angel, who could only hug her back in confusion as she looked up at him love in her eyes.

“I mean, he may have been our first, but she _was_ a lot easier, wasn’t she?” Buffy asked, smiling up at the former terror of Europe.

Angel could only nod slightly as he followed Buffy into her old house…

Only to suddenly have a small figure in a purple dress grab at his leg and smile up at him with brilliant brown eyes and long brown hair.

“DADDY!” she yelled, looking up at him eagerly.

“Kathy…” a voice said from the main sitting room in a teasing tone, “leave your father alone and come back here before we open all the presents without you!”

“NO!” ‘Kathy’ yelled, releasing her grip on Angel’s leg and running back into the room, leaving Angel to stare after her in shock. “Uncle Giles, tell them to leave my presents alone!”

 _Uncle Giles_? Angel thought to himself in confusion, before Giles’ words sunk in.

 _Leave her father alone_? he thought to himself in confusion. _But… but she was on_ me _when he-_

Angel froze, realisation hitting him as he stared after Kathy.

 _She’s... she’s my daughter_? he thought to himself. True, after discovering Darla’s pregnancy, he’d thought about naming the child Kathy if it was a girl, after the aunt she would never know, but to see a child _actually_ walking about with that name…

Then he looked into the room, and got even more of a shock.

The room was _filled_ with nearly all of the friends he’d ever made since his fateful encounter with Buffy, even if they were currently dead.

Jenny Calendar was sitting next to Giles on one sofa, wedding rings visible on both their fingers as Jenny stroked a belly that was evidently at least seven months pregnant….

Xander was crouched on the ground beside Dawn, their arms around each other as Xander affectionately ruffled ‘Kathy’s’ hair where she was sitting in front of him, staring at a mass of presents that, contrary to Giles’ teasing, appeared to have been untouched…

Willow was sitting on another sofa, with (Angel blinked in surprise) Oz _and_ Tara on either side of her, Willow’s arms on the shoulder of a small boy- evidently only four years old- sitting in front of her, who seemed to have Oz’s eyes and Tara’s hair…

Another boy, almost six years old, was sitting on the ground beside a leather armchair, in which Cordelia and (Angel’s eyes widened in shock) _Doyle_ were sitting, kissing each other as the boy made mock gagging sounds…

Wesley was on the ground in front of the fire, his arms around Fred, evidently _not_ Illyria in this reality…

Gunn was standing at the room’s other entrance, his arm around Faith’s waist as he smiled over at his old friend…

Even Spike was there, rolling his eyes as his grandsire entered, sitting close to Anya on the ground between the sofa (The one with Giles and Jenny on it) and the armchair where Doyle and Cordelia were sitting.

“Good, you’re back!” another familiar voice said. Glancing over his shoulder, Angel saw to his ever-growing surprise that it was Joyce, holding a large chocolate birthday cake with four candles on it that was almost the size of Kathy herself. “What were you doing outside, anyway?”

“You know Angel, Mrs Summers,” Willow smiled, looking over at Joyce as she laid the cake down in front of Kathy- _her_ grand _daughter_ , Angel thought briefly. “Any moment of bright sunlight when there’s a lull in the action and he’s out there to enjoy it.”

Buffy smiled behind him and squeezed his shoulder. “I keep on telling him that he won’t become a vampire again at the drop of a hat, but he _never_ seems to take it in!” she said, grinning as Kathy looked eagerly up at her…

 _Her parents_ , Angel’s dazed mind thought again. _She called me ‘Daddy’… she’s my daughter… she’s_ Buffy’s _daughter_ …

“C’mon, Kathy, make a wish!” Dawn smiled at the little girl, who looked over at her critically.

“Don’t _rush_ me, Aunt Dawn!” she said critically, in a manner that sounded older than she looked. “I have to think of a wish!”

“D-don’t forget to at least _whisper_ it,” Tara said teasingly, as she patted Willow’s arm. “After all, how can we grant it otherwise?”

“ _Hey_!” the little boy over beside Doyle and Cordelia said, looking over at the two witches critically. “You never offered to grant _my_ birthday wishes!”

Oz shrugged. “Women,” he said simply, as the boy looked over at him inquiringly. “Trust me, Conner; they’re always confusing.”

Despite his confusion, Angel couldn’t help but smile. He and Oz hadn’t spoken often during his time as Sunnydale, but he’d always somehow identified with the young werewolf, and it was good to see him here, giving advice to a child as he sat with his old friends…

“Like it?” a voice said behind him.

Looking around in confusion, Angel suddenly realised that nobody was moving.

Nobody, that is, except for the person who was suddenly standing behind him.

“Cole?” Angel said, looking back at the demon in confusion. “What is this?”

“Your perfect world, Angel,” Cole said, smiling as he indicated the smiling faces all around them. “Look at it. _This_ is how your life _should_ have been, Angel. You got the flawed model- the version where people never got to have their dreams come true- but this?”

He waved his hand at everyone in the room. “ _This_ is perfection.”

“How?” Angel asked, looking Cole in the eyes as he spoke. “What changed here?”

“The curse, really,” Cole said, smiling casually as he leaned against the door frame and looked at Angel with a small smile on his face. “In this reality, the curse expelled the _demon_ from your body rather than your _soul_ , and, with Angelus gone…”

He shrugged. “Well, you became human. Enhanced strength and senses, true, but still human.”

Chuckling slightly at Angel’s suddenly widened eyes, Cole indicated the boy sitting next to Cordelia and Doyle. “Nine months later, Connor here was born, chuckling as he kept on grabbing his daddy’s finger after mommy had given him his breakfast. He’s already showing traits of your combined strengths, and he’ll only become better at demon-fighting as he gets older.”

Cole began to walk around the room, looking briefly at each couple (Or threesome, in one case) as he gave Angel a brief summary of this new life.

“It took a while for Jenny and Rupert to patch things up after they learned she was there to spy on you, but, once they did, it was only a matter of time before the wedding; you were best man and Willow was a bridesmaid.” Cole paused briefly to pat Jenny’s stomach and smile up at Angel. “They’ll call the kid Liam, you know.”

“Xander never got round to dating after he and Cordelia broke up; after Connor was born, he went off relationships in general because he didn’t want to risk becoming a father,” Cole explained, walking over to where Angel’s… _sister-in-law_ , he supposed... was sitting with her boyfriend. “Kept warding off Anya’s advances for constant sex; seeing what you and Buffy had, he kept on holding out for that rather than a brief fling.”

“Dawn… well, she had her little identity crisis when the whole ‘Key-thing’, was revealed, but, with a little help from her friends, she got over it fairly quickly; easy to do, given that Glory was battered senseless by all _four_ of you until she turned back into Ben and Faith broke his neck,” he said, indicating Faith, Buffy, Spike and Angel. “She’s been dating Xander ever since the summer of 2001; after Dawn saved his life in Pylea when he was nearly killed by one of their warriors, he realised how much she meant to him.”

“He… he went to Pylea?” Angel said, looking at Cole in confusion.

“You all did; I’ll get to that later,” Cole smiled, as he indicated Doyle and Cordelia. “Doyle came over in 1999 to ask for some help in kicking demon arse in that city. You went along, saved Cordelia from a vampire masquerading as a producer, and set up the detective agency. These days, you and Buffy emigrate back and forth from Sunnydale to L.A. and vice-versa; Faith normally manages L.A. on a regular basis while Spike helps out in Sunnydale. With Buffy’s help, you were able to stop the beacon before it reached the danger-point, and Doyle and Cordelia have been dating ever since; Doyle still hasn’t summoned the nerve to propose.”

“Spike here…” Cole shrugged. “The chip thing was pretty much the same as in the history you remember; he just never fell for Buffy, got a bit hot ‘n heavy with Anya after they got plastered while trying to drink away their sorrows, and he’s hung around ever since. Anya’s pretty much the same, really; substitute Xander with Spike, have it start a bit later, cut out the wedding thing- Spike can’t really see the point and Anya’s content with things as they are-, and everything’s indistinguishable.”

“Faith and Gunn…” He shrugged. “Tragic, really; Kendra got taken out by the Mayor when she came down to help you guys out with him, and then Faith nearly defected because she just felt like a replacement. You took her over to L.A., and, after a bit of time helping Doyle and Cordelia kick demon ass, she grew into her own identity; even started dating Gunn shortly after she saved his sister from a vampire.”

“Wesley came over to serve as Faith’s watcher, but after the Mayor nearly broke his neck he began to make more of an effort to toughen up, and moved over to L.A. with Faith. When Cordelia _and_ Doyle got dragged into Pylea by accident, you, Buffy, and the whole gang went on after them, Fred was rescued, the Grooslaug was politely turned down, and you all came back with a _much_ better appreciation for your lives.”

“And… them?” Angel asked, indicating Tara, Oz and Willow with another hand. “How’d that happen?”

Cole smiled. “Good question, that,” he said, smiling as he walked over to the threesome. “Casual comment by Anya while feeling frustrated at her _own_ inability to get some led to the three of them realising- after Oz got back from his spiritual quest to ‘control the beast within’- that they’d actually be better off as a threesome than as anything else. So far Tara’s the only one that’s given birth- named the kid Jesse, by the way-, but Willow’s already got a bun in the oven that nobody else knows about.” He chuckled and patted Willow's currently-frozen chest as he looked over at Angel. “It’ll be a girl; they’ll call her Violet, after her ‘step-mom’s’ mother.”

“Well… what about Joyce? And Lorne?” Angel asked, looking inquiringly at the woman who he supposed was now his mother-in-law before looking back at Cole. “What happened to her? Where is he?”

“Oh, Joyce is easy enough,” Cole explained casually. “She had the tumour, but that whole thing was just made worse by Glory’s continued existence in Sunnydale in your history, and with _two_ vampires and _two_ Slayers tackling her, Glory went down far faster than she did originally. As for Lorne, you know him, I assure you; he just couldn’t come here because he was busy trying to re-establish Caritas after a chaos demon tried to break into it and destroy our reality before you guys decapitated it. Don’t worry; the club’ll be ready in time for Connor’s birthday in a month or so.”

He looked inquiringly at Angel. “That is, of course, if you want this to become permanent?”

Angel looked at Cole in shock.

“Wh… what?” he asked, staring at the demon incredulously. “You… you can make this real?”

“Oh, it already is, Angel,” Cole said, smiling at the vampire. “All I’d be doing is making it real for _you_ on a permanent basis.”

He placed a hand on the vampire’s shoulder. “Think about it, Angel. Everything you ever wanted… friends, humanity, a family… you can have it all.”

He stepped back and smiled casually at his ‘friend’. “All I ask is that you let me have the same sort of thing for myself.”

Angel looked around the room. Almost everyone who’d made a major impact on his life (Well, except Anya; he’d barely ever spoken to her), in the same room, at the same time, alive, well, and in love with their respective others. A beautiful wife… incredible children… an ever-growing circle of unofficial nephews and nieces…

Angel swallowed as he looked over at Buffy, her face split into a smile as she looked at their daughter.

Leaning over, Angel tenderly kissed Buffy on the lips, a soft kiss that nevertheless conveyed all the love he felt for her, even after all their time apart.

“I love you…” he whispered to her as he pulled back. Even if he knew she wouldn’t hear him, he still had to say it to her one last time…

Then he whirled around and hit Cole right in the neck with a spinning kick.


	16. Angel Versus Cole: Round Two

The Beast itself could not have taken Angel’s last kick and gotten out of it completely unscratched. Cole, possessing only a _fraction_ of the superhuman strength of the vampire, had never even had a prayer.

The moment the kick hit him he was sent reeling back, clutching at his throat as though desperate to protect it from another assault, and the frozen world around them vanished as Angel and he slipped into the shimmering dimension; evidently they’d only been able to stay in that world for as long as Cole was focused.

“HOW DARE YOU!” Angel roared at Cole, shifting into his vampire face as he began to launch a powerful array of punches and kicks at his opponent, barely giving Cole any time to counter-attack. “HOW _DARE_ YOU USE BUFFY TO TRY AND MAKE ME GIVE IN! HOW DARE YOU MANIPULATE ME! HOW _DARE_ YOU STAND THERE AND ACT LIKE YOU WANTED TO HELP ME!”

“I _do_ want to help you!” Cole yelled back, although his voice was slightly muffled by his damaged teeth and jaw. “Why else would I show you that world-”

“Oh, with _that_ SHIT excuse of a life?” Angel asked, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder in the metaphorical direction of the illusion.

“Cole, don’t you _get_ it?” he said, his voice lowering in volume as he spoke, trying to resist the temptation to strike at the man who had once, so very long ago, helped him to realise the truth of the words he was now speaking. “Life _can’t_ be perfect, or we wouldn’t have anything to compare it to. How would we know we were awake… if we’d never been to sleep? How would we know we were happy… if we had never been sad? We have to take the good _with_ the bad, not sidestep the bad every chance we get. If we don’t make mistakes, how can we learn from them?”

Cole stood up, still slightly unsteady on his feet, and glared at Angel.

“You truly believe that to be the case, Angel?” he asked, slightly tense as he faced Angel; evidently he was preparing to attack again. “No matter what the consequences of your mistake are, you wouldn’t take your decision back? Even if your mistakes cost you everything you ever wanted?”

Angel nodded, a slight tear in his eye.

“Even then,” he said to Cole, tensing himself as well as he prepared to retaliate. “My past made me what I am; I can’t just change it every time I feel hard done by.”

Cole merely growled slightly in reply as the two of them stared at each other, each one waiting for a chance to strike and defend their ‘beliefs’ to the other.

In the end, they both moved at the same time, lunging towards each other with a crash that seemed to send ripples along the walls of the dimension as they collided, Angel’s vampire face on and Cole’s eyes gleaming with red fire from the power within him.

The two ‘men’- for lack of a better term- grappled with each other at close quarters, neither one prepared to give the other man a chance to get a spell off, albeit for different reasons. Punches were landed by each man onto the face and upper body of his foe as could best be done in such close quarters, but the two combatants were so close to each other that neither of them could land a punch that would be powerful enough to make a serious difference.

After a few moments of rolling around through the blankness that surrounded them, it was Angel who terminated their violent ‘embrace’ by grabbing Cole’s shirt and head-butting him sharply on the nose. The recoil of the impact snapped Cole’s head back sharply, followed closely by the rest of his body as Angel struck Cole sharply in the chest with both feet in a powerful kick. The sheer force of the blow sent Cole flying back several ‘feet’ before he managed to steady himself, looking back at Angel with cold determination in his eyes.

The vampire didn’t even seem angry that Cole was still alive, never mind frightened at how the demon was glaring at him. He simply smiled, as though recalling a pleasant memory, and then raised his hands, his entire body now beginning to crackle all over with golden energy.

“The gloves are off,” he said to Cole simply.

Then he dived towards the demon with a speed that would have seemed too fast to a passing beam of light (Assuming light worked the same way on this plane of existence), and collided with Cole, sending the two of them flying as gold light shone around them…

And suddenly, countless alternate lives flashed before their eyes, as though, just for a moment, the barriers separating their alternate selves had collapsed, and these two versions of Angel and Cole could experience everything that was being felt by the others.

Cole was a mortal doctor who had fallen in love with an equally mortal Piper after she contracted amnesia… he was still an Avatar, returning to the present after a showdown in a future ruled by an evil version of Wyatt Matthew Halliwell… he was Belthazor again, giving the best man speech at Piper and Leo’s second wedding… he was engaged to Phoebe as she was pregnant with his child, having started dating her _before_ he knew about her heritage as a witch...

Angel was a private detective mounting a robbery to get revenge on this reality’s Wolfram & Hart… he was human once again, united with Buffy, Conner and Dawn after being restored to life following the destruction of Sunnydale… Darla and Conner were still alive and lived with him as a family, although an eight or nine-year-old girl who called him ‘Daddy’ and seemed to resemble Fred was there as well… he- much to his shock- appeared to be a _woman_ for some reason...

Then, briefly, a world flashed before their eyes that both saw, instead of just one. A world that featured both of them in it, as close as brothers in all ways but blood, sitting on a couch, surrounded by children of various ages, none of them older than five, chuckling as they watched _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_ on the television…

Then that world passed, the golden light around them vanished, and Angel was left staring down at Cole, who was merely blinking in confusion at his surroundings; evidently, most like since _he_ hadn’t been the one to trigger it, he was more dazed by their recent experience than he was.

Angel had to admit, he felt like sitting down for a few moments to get his head together himself- what _had_ he just done there, used his magic to dive through countless alternate realities in some subconscious attempt to daze Cole?- but shook it off; there would be time for weakness once Cole had been defeated. This was no time to dwell on what could have been; he had set himself a task, and this task had yet to be accomplished.

He wasn’t denying that the prospect of stopping for a while to take a look at other alternate worlds was pleasant, but he had more immediate matters to attend to. Some of the worlds he’d seen had been good ones, yes, but unlike Cole, Angel was content to just be himself and use his temporary powers to stop his new nemesis, rather than use them to try and insert himself into a new timeline.

Whatever had happened to his alternates that gave them the life they had led, they deserved it. Life had given them a chance, and they had taken it, where he, for reasons unknown, had not taken it or had never even had the option to take it.

All he could do was make the most of the life that _he_ possessed; they had their worlds, and he had his.

As he looked down at Cole, now more alert and looking almost ready to strike back again, Angel’s mind flashed back to the events of half a year ago, when he and Lindsey had duelled in the basement of Wolfram & Hart.

“ _It doesn't matter what you try. It doesn't matter where I am, or how bad-ass you think you've become, because you know what? I'm Angel. I beat the bad guys…_ ”

It had been true then, and it was still true now. Whether his adversary was a human, a vampire, a demon, a god…

Angel had always found a way to defeat it.

He wouldn’t break his record now.As Cole stared up at him with an expression that could almost be incredulity, as though he _still_ couldn’t believe that Angel wanted him dead after all this, Angel lunged towards Cole again…

* * *

  
And suddenly, Angel felt his consciousness _rise_ from his body. For a moment he thought that Cole had somehow negated the curse and freed his soul, but quickly realised that, unlike the last couple of times this had taken place, he could still sense his physical body.

Then a figure appeared in front of him. Dressed in the brown leather coat, dark trousers, and dull long-sleeved white T-shirt, looking for all the world like he had when he was Belthazor and fighting on Angel’s side, a golden gleam around him that could only indicate the presence of a soul, a gleam that could never be fabricated…

Cole Turner.

“You finally did it, huh?” the former lawyer said, looking at the vampire with a small smile on his face. “It took you long enough… Then again, I suppose it took you a while to get the picture after my little ‘talk’ to you, didn’t it?”

“What?” Angel said, looking at Cole in confusion. “What are you…”

Then he noticed something that he hadn’t registered before. Like many of the astral projections and ghosts he’d encountered in his life, Cole seemed slightly transparent, but this was different. Certain details about him seemed to be… _indistinct_ , for lack of a better term. His sleeves almost seemed to become part of his wrists, the fur around the edge of his coat was hazy and indistinct; it was almost like looking at a self-portrait done by a skilled artist, but who was basing his work on what he _remembered_ from a while ago rather than what was in front of him at the immediate moment…

And then it hit Angel.

“You’re… you’re the Cole _I_ know, aren’t you?” he said, looking at Cole in surprise. “You’re the part of him that remembers this when we send you back…”

“Got it in one,” Cole said, smiling over at Angel. “When I was sent back, the sisters cast a spell to erase my memories of my time in the future, but it somehow had the side effect of creating a kind of… _sub_ -me, I guess you could say, that remembered everything that happened in that time and remained dormant in my subconscious. As things went on, I realised that I could observe everything that happened to the dominant personality without being affected by it like he was; I think that, in some way, I’m actually the last remnants of his soul.”

Sighing sadly, he looked back at Angel’s suddenly inquiring expression. “Believe me, I’ve tried to take advantage of that fact, but the dark magic in me’s too powerful. I’ve given everything I’ve got towards trying to take control of the body back at some points, but all I could exert was the slightest suggestion as to whether or not to do something in the last few months; stop him blowing Paige up the moment he saw her, prevent him from taking over Phoebe’s mind to make her love him again…”

He sighed. “Minor details, I know, but it was all I could do.”

“And… this?” Angel asked, indicating himself and Cole. “What happened to make this little ‘chat’ of ours possible?”

Cole smiled slightly at that. “You did, really,” he said to his old friend. “Your little ‘stunt’ back there with the dimension dive- interesting trick, by the way- left him dazed enough for me to reach out and form this link with you. We’re currently communicating on the astral plane; our bodies are pretty much moving in slow motion back where we left them.”

“Ah,” Angel said, nodding in understanding before he looked at Cole in confusion once again. “And the point of this is…”

“You need my help to pull this next part of the fight off,” Cole said, looking at Angel with a serious expression. “If you can get that potion down ‘my’ throat, you’ll be fine from there, but you’ll never got close enough to do that without my help. If you transfer some power to me, I can break out of this body, leaving him so confused that you can shove the potion down his throat, and then take him out if you move fast enough.”

Angel nodded thoughtfully. “Could work…” he said, before his eyes widened and he looked back at Cole in horror. “But… wait a minute… if you leave the body…”

Cole shrugged. “Yeah, I know, I go off to whatever’s waiting for me in the afterlife and there’s a good chance that I’ll end up in Hell because of what my body’s been doing after it got corrupted by all that dark magic…” he said nonchalantly as he looked back at Angel. “Your concern’s appreciated, Angel, but trust me; I’ll be fine. What happens…”

He sighed. “Well, I’ve had a good run; all I can do is go out with a bang.”

He looked over at Angel with a resolved stare. “Now, just hurry up and do it before I change my mind.”

His throat too tight to speak, unable to believe what his friend was willing to sacrifice for the sake of the world that had forced him into this position, Angel could merely nod. Raising his arms, Angel launched a burst of energy at Cole…

* * *

  
And then he was back in his body, leaping towards Cole, whose head had suddenly been thrust back sharply as a brilliant gold light burst from his eyes and mouth. The light vanished just as Angel hit him, knocking Cole flat onto his back. Glancing at Cole’s face, Angel was relieved to see that ‘Soul-Cole’s’ gamble had paid off; Cole was staring blankly ‘upwards’ in confusion, almost as though he was looking for something he’d missed and couldn’t understand what it was doing there.

Seizing his chance, Angel pulled out the phial of potion that Leo had given him (Mercifully still intact), pulled the stopper off, and tipped the whole bottle down Cole’s open mouth. Cole’s entire body suddenly glowed a vibrant blue for a moment, and then the glow faded, leaving Cole looking mostly the same as before, but somehow less… complete, was the best term Angel could come up with.

As Cole blinked his eyes open to look up at the vampire, Angel just smiled.

“Hey, _asshole_ ,” he said, raising his fist back as he grabbed Cole’s shirt, “who’s Mr Big without the increased healing?”

Before Cole could reply, Angel had punched him the face, leaving Cole with a broken nose, and then hauled Cole onto his feet, his head in Angel’s hands.

As Cole stood there, his soul gone and his every action now motivated merely by his magic, his dazed brain registered just what Angel was intending to do. One hand stretched over his left cheek and ear, the other hand nearly encompassing the right side of Cole’s head, each one gripping the head in such a tight hold that Cole couldn’t break free…

Cole swallowed.

Angel was going to break his neck.

“Go ahead- kill me!” he yelled at the vampire, a last act of defiance as well as a last stab at survival. “Snap my neck like a dry twig. It’ll be your last chance with _her_!”

He felt Angel tense slightly, and smiled; it seemed like he’d struck a nerve there. It seemed like no matter what else happened, the Slayer would always be Angelus’ weak spot…

“Think about it, Angel!” Cole yelled, frantically trying to make his point to Angel before the vampire could finish the job. “You signed away the Shanshu prophecy; you’ll never be human now! You’ll always be a vampire, and she’ll spend her life _fucking_ the likes of the Immortal! _Is the world really worth that price_!”

Angel sighed, as he stared up at nothing in particular.

“No,” he said, regretfully. “The world isn’t worth that.”

Cole relaxed, and Angel seized his chance. Twisting Cole’s head sharply to the right, an audible snap was heard as Cole’s head suddenly ended up facing backwards.

For a moment, the first vampire and the first magic-based demon to ever possess souls stared at each other, a single thought flashing through their minds as their seemingly timeless combat finally came to an end.

_Brother…_

Then the light faded from Cole’s eyes, and Angel let his body fall. As he stared down at the fallen body of his once and future friend, fire slowly spreading along his form as the magic within his body began to depart their ‘prison, he uttered three simply words to explain his actions, the only words that were needed.

“But she is.”


	17. The Loss and the Legend

Ducking under a sword swipe from yet _another_ of the green samurai-like demons that seemed to be everywhere in this battle, Blade lashed out a punch at the gem on its forehead, taking a moment to watch in satisfaction as it collapsed to the ground before spinning around rapidly to decapitate an oncoming pair of zombies.

“Will you guys just _give it a rest already_!” the hybrid heard Hellboy roar in frustration as the sound of shattering masonry was head; either Hellboy had just punched through the wall of this place or he’d shattered another golem. Given the surprisingly large number of those things that seemed to be here, Blade was betting it was the golem option; anyone facing a golem was under strict instructions to inform Hellboy as soon as possible, being the only member of their group who possessed the raw strength to punch through that much rock. “You’ve lost your boss; can’t you get the picture that _we’re kicking your freakin’ asses_!”

“I don’t think they understand anymore, Hellboy!” Blade called over to his new friend as he ducked under a swipe from something that resembled a green Pokemen he’d once seen in a shop window- he thought it was called a ‘Scyther’ or something like that- and stabbed it in the chest before rolling away from a large bug-like demon. “They’re too driven to stop _us_ , they don’t register anything else!”

“Indeed!” Illyria yelled over; Blade noticed that she seemed to be acquitting herself well in a fight against three vampires simultaneously, armed only with a couple of short Japanese swords that she must have taken from the fallen Mohra demons. “With their king gone, they no longer know what to do, so they are bent on fulfilling his final command to them! We cannot make them stop; we must merely kill them!”

“Oh, no sweat, there’s only, what, a _few hundred of these buggers_!” Spike yelled over at the blue-haired woman as he desperately hacked at his adversaries with a stolen axe. “We are _not_ gods, Smurf; we can’t just click our fingers and make them vanish!”

“Just keep on trying, Spike,” Belthazor said, smiling over at his vampire friend as he launched a series of energy balls at a few advancing warlocks. “If Angel plays his cards right, he should be back here soon enough...”

“Oh, like _he’ll_ make a major difference?” Spike asked, glaring over at Belthazor. “He’s just a bleeding vampire, Cole; what can he _do_ in this fight apart from make the numbers a bit less overwhelming?”

“Maybe… _this_?” a voice said from the centre of the room, a voice that was simultaneously calm and collected, yet at the same time clearly audible even over the chaos going on around it.

Spinning around in the direction of the voice, the remaining members of the Coven had just enough time to see Angel standing there, his arms spread out wide like Jesus hanging from the cross, before bolts of brilliant golden energy burst from his fingers, striking what seemed like every non-reformed demon in the room.

“What the…” Blade said, staring around at the army in confusion. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure…” Belthazor muttered, as he shifted back into Cole as he looked around at their falling foes. “But I think Angel’s… _draining_ them, somehow…”

As the Coven watched the sight before them, the demons collapsed, one by one, the warlocks bursting into flames as the vampires fell down into dust, until only Angel’s colleagues in the Coven were left standing, and the vampire himself was glowing a brilliant gold, as though he had acquired his own personal spotlight that couldn’t be seen itself, but whose effects were clearly visible.

Raising his hands, his face contorting with pain, Angel fired a brilliant burst of gold energy up towards the ceiling of the room they now stood in, the resulting beam shattering the stone and sounding as though it was destroying the ceilings of the rooms above this one as well.

As the five ‘part’-demons watched their leader, the glow faded as the beam began to die, and, as the two vanished, Angel collapsed to the ground, panting weakly as he smiled up at his friends.

“Did it…” he panted weakly. “He’s gone…”

Then his eyes rolled upwards and he collapsed to the ground.

“ANGEL!” Cole yelled as he ran towards his new friend, followed closely by the other Coven members. As they reached the vampire, there was a brief shimmer of white light, and suddenly the Charmed Ones, Leo and Constantine were standing at the entrance, looked over at the collapsed form of Angel, and ran over to join the Coven. As they reached the fallen vampire, Constantine crouched down beside the fallen leader of the Coven and held a hand over his body before looking up at the others.

“He’s alive; he’s just weak,” the exorcist said, before glancing around at the fallen bodies and piles of ash around them. “What happened here; you guys go mad?”

“And where’s… y’know, _Evil_ Cole?” Phoebe asked, glancing over apologetically at Cole for the comment.

“Well, last I saw of him, Angel and him had vanished just after Cole had decapitated Batman,” Hellboy put in. Noting the suddenly saddened expression on Constantine’s face, Hellboy sighed and patted his friend’s shoulder with his flesh hand as gently as he could. “Yeah, I know it’s a blow; the guy deserved better than to go like that.”

He glanced down at Angel. “But, since this guy’s the one who came back, I think we can safely say that we don’t have to worry about Bats’s murder going unavenged.”

“But… how could _Angel_ stop him alone?” Piper asked, glancing over at her sisters and Leo. “I mean, no offence on him, but we’re the three most powerful witches in the world and it took all we had just to keep Cole occupied; how could one vampire stop him alone?”

“Simple,” Cole said, smiling as the others turned to look at him. “He stole some of my other self’s powers.”

The Coven’s eyes widened in surprise at that comment, most of them glancing between Blade, Spike, and the Halliwells as realisation began to dawn on them.

“You mean… like when Blade and the others used their powers to break us out?” Hellboy asked, indicating the Charmed Ones with a wave of his hand.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Cole said, nodding at Hellboy with a slight smile of approval. “The powers wouldn’t have lasted long, of course; I’d be prepared to guess that Angel expelled the last bit of his stolen energy when he pulled off that stunt earlier that took these guys out.”

Paige’s eyes widened as she stared around the room at the fallen demons.

“You mean… _he_ did all _this_?” she asked, indicating the fallen bodies surrounding them with a wave of her hand. “But… the power he’d need…”

“Would be a lot?” Blade asked, glancing over at Paige with a small smile. “Hey; from what I gathered, Cole was the most powerful magical being this world had seen for a while now, if he wasn’t top of the pecking order already. Even if Angel was weakened by his fight with Cole, it wouldn’t have needed much of his power to do some serious damage if that’s accurate, would it?”

Paige nodded thoughtfully.

“ _Could_ work, I guess…” she said, before a loud groan broke through the air as Angel’s eyes blinked open.

“Ugh…” he groaned as he sat up, glancing around the room until his eyes fell on Leo and Constantine.

“Did… did you do it?” he asked the two of them, his voice sounding slightly hoarse as he spoke. “Did you… save your son?”

Leo smiled and nodded.

“He’s fine, Angel,” the Whitelighter reassured his old/new friend. “We’re all fine...”

“Well, apart from Batman, unfortunately,” Cole sighed, as he glanced over to where Batman’s body lay on the ground near the podium, the head lying a metre or so away from the rest of him.

As he sat up, wincing slightly at his sore limbs, Angel looked over at the body and sighed sadly.

“He didn’t deserve that…” he mused, as Blade and Spike joined him in looking at the body of yet another of a seemingly rare breed; a vampire who attempted to use his dark thirst and channel it for good, rather than for evil.

Watching the body, the rest of the Coven could only agree. Even the Charmed Ones- Leo and Constantine having told them about the rest of the Coven while they got Wyatt settled down back in the manor- couldn’t help but feel that, for all his ‘crimes’, Batman deserved better than to just die in such a final, brutal manner.

Standing up, using Spike’s shoulder for support, Angel walked over to pick up Batman’s head, Spike and Blade standing alongside him as Angel raise the head so it was eye-to-socket with his own face.

The three vampires stared at their fallen comrade for a moment, and then Angel sighed.

“Goodbye, Bruce Wayne,” he said, as the three vampires bowed their heads in respect at the great hero, the other members of the Coven doing the same thing behind him.

“You may have been the _Dark_ Knight,” Blade added as he looked at the sad remains of Gotham’s corrupted champion, “but your heroism shone through like nothing we have ever known.”

“The team was better for knowing you, and poorer for losing you,” Spike added, sighing sadly. “So long, mate.”

After a moment’s silence, in which the Coven and the Charmed Ones remembered what they knew of Batman- both from his history in the comics and the oh-too-short time they had spent in his company- Angel looked back at Leo and indicated the head and body before them.

“We’re taking these with us,” he said, as Blade and Spike picked up the seemingly fragile body that had possessed such strength in life. “He deserves better than to just be left here, one body among hundreds.”

Leo nodded. “Agreed,” he said, as he glanced at the body. “We’ll need to cremate it, though; it’s only as dust that he’ll truly find peace. As it is, he might be trapped in some kind of purgatory; at least if he can pass on, he may find the peace he needs.”

“Sounds fine,” Hellboy said, as he glanced around at their little group. “So, how do we get out of here; Cole again?”

Leo shook his head. “No, Paige and I can orb out easily enough now; after all, who are we going to tip off?” he asked, as he glanced over at Cole and Paige. “Divide into three groups, and Paige should just follow me and Cole; we’ll be heading back to our original meeting room.”

“Wait; you mean the place where Gideon deposited me with you guys?” Constantine interrupted, glaring over at Leo. “You sure it’s safe? What if somebody else was in on Gideon’s plan?”

“They wouldn’t have been,” Leo said, looking back at Constantine. “If Gideon had _anyone_ else on his side, he’d have called for their help when we showed up; trust me, there will be fine.”

“Besides,” Cole added, as the other Coven members gathered around Leo, Paige and Cole in preparation to orb/shimmer out, “we still have one thing to attend to that can only be done there…”

* * *

  
As soon as Phoebe found her feet once again, and had ascertained that everyone else was where they should be, she turned to look critically at Cole, trying to ignore the near-blinding _whiteness_ of the room they were now in…

“What do you mean, something that can only be done here?” she asked her ex/current boyfriend (Ex for her, current for him) with a glare in her eye. “We’ve already won; what else _has_ to be done?”

Cole sighed as he indicated himself.

“Phoebe, look at me,” he said, staring at her a little sadly. “I’m from the past; technically, I don’t exist any more. I can’t stay here.”

He glanced over at Leo. “How soon can you send me back?”

“NO!” Phoebe yelled, staring at Cole in horror as the entire Coven spun around to look at her. “You _can’t_ go back; you’ll… you’ll…”

“Become that guy we fought?” Cole asked, smiling slightly as he looked at the young witch who would always be the love of his life. “I know that there’s a chance that will happen, but…”

He shrugged. “Well, what’s the alternative? Stay here, in a reality where I’m dead and the world’s just passed me by? As dark as it may be, I’d rather be where I belong.”

“But…” Phoebe began, before Cole placed his hands on her shoulders and looked her in the eyes.

“Phoebe,” he said, staring at her as the rest of the Coven turned to look at their friend curiously. “I know that my future, if I go back, won’t be pretty; I know that I’ll lose you eventually; I know that I can’t expect a happy ending, even if I remember what happened here; but I just want to know one thing. Even if it was only for a while… were we happy?”

Looking back at Cole, a slightly pleading expression in his eyes, Phoebe could only nod slightly.

“Yes,” she said, although her eyes were shimmering slightly from tears, and she sounded like she was going to let them fall at any moment. “Yes… we were happy…”

Cole smiled.

“That’s all I needed to know,” he said, as he pulled her into a hug.

As Phoebe hugged him back, the rest of the Coven nodded in understanding of what their friend had meant by that comment. If this mission had taught them anything, it was a powerful reminder of something that they would all do well to remember to avoid Cole’s fate. Life may be unfair at times, but you couldn’t just try to avoid the bad parts of life and just enjoy the good parts whenever you could be sure they wouldn’t go bad. Nothing in life was certain, but that didn’t mean you should go to all lengths possible just to make sure that you got the best option possible if you could.

As someone had once said, how would a person know they were awake, if they had never been to sleep?

The same principle applied here.

How could someone know when they were happy, if they never even had the chance to be sad?

Even if the Cole of the _present_ hadn’t understood that, his past self did.

Sighing, Phoebe stepped back, and looked over at Leo.

“What’s needed?” she asked her brother-in-law.

“Just erase his memory of the last few hours, and then send him back in time,” Leo explained.

“Right,” Piper said, as she, Paige and Phoebe stood around Cole. “Cole, think this would work better if I froze you?” she asked, as Cole turned to look at her. “You know, that way we can just drop you back home as the freeze ends and nobody’s any the wiser?”

Cole nodded. “Yeah, that sounds fine; freezing shouldn’t stop the memory spells working on me,” he assured her, as he swallowed slightly, closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and spread his arms slightly. “Let’s just do this.”

Nodding, Piper quickly flicked her hands at Cole, and, instantly, the once and present Belthazor was frozen, totally unaware of his surroundings.

“Right,” Phoebe said, as she glanced over at Piper. “I’ve got a memory spell we picked up from one of our first jaunts into the future; we need to _mention_ what we want to erase, but if we just ask him to forget the Coven, he should forget everything related to them.”

“Perfect,” Piper said, as she joined hands with her sisters and faced Cole’s immobilised form.

“ _Thoughts,  
Beliefs,  
Ideas,  
Truths,  
Images  
All of these you hold onto tightly  
What I now mention  
You will not remember_.”

“The Coven of Reformed Supernaturals!” Phoebe said. A gold light briefly shimmered around Cole’s head and then faded.

“Right,” Piper said, as she and her sisters nodded resolutely. “One last spell, and he’s home.”

Nodding, slight tears in her eyes, Phoebe looked back at Cole.

“Goodbye…” she whispered, briefly reflecting on the irony of the situation. A few hours ago, she’d been ready to kill Cole, even if it wasn’t exactly _this_ Cole. Now, she could barely even remember what she’d been angry at him about in the first place.

Nodding resolutely, Phoebe clasped her sisters’ hands as they stared at Cole.

“ _A time for everything  
And everything in it's place  
Return what has been moved  
Through time and space_.”

As soon as the spell was finished, Cole turned into a ball of brilliant golden light and drifted up into the air, before blinking into nothingness.

For a moment, the Coven and their allies were silent, all ten of them, as they contemplated the sacrifice that Cole had made for them. Then, sighing slightly, Angel clapped his hands together and looked around at the others in the room.

“So, now that the immediate concerns are attended to, what do we do next?” he asked.

“What?” Hellboy said, looking over at his ‘leader’ in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Well, what I mean is, do we go our separate ways, or stick together and help each other out with the occasional problem when it crops up?” Angel asked, raising an eyebrow as he stared around the room. “I mean, I don’t know about you guys, but the way I see it, we could make a significantly larger difference in the world if we stayed together, rather than if we just worked individually.”

The rest of the Coven looked at each other inquiringly for a few moments, and then Blade smiled and looked back at Angel.

“I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m interested,” he said, smiling at his friend. “I mean, hey; the chance to work with the only other vampires in history who _aren’t_ homicidal maniacs? What’s not to like?”

Spike and Illyria glanced over at each other, and smiled briefly before Spike looked back at Angel.

“Well, you know Blue and me, Peaches; any excuse to kick some demon arse,” he said, as he patted Illyria affectionately on the shoulder. “We’re in if you are.”

Constantine and Hellboy nodded in agreement as well, before the rest of the Coven turned to look at Leo.

“Well, Leo?” Hellboy asked, smiling slightly at the former army medic. “You want to stick around, or what?”

Leo looked at the Coven thoughtfully for a few moments, and then turned back to look at the Halliwells, an inquiring look on his face. He opened his mouth to say something, but Piper clapped her hand over his mouth and looked at him critically.

“Don’t bother trying to weasel out of this, Leo,” she said, staring harshly at her husband. “These guys need a contact with the Elders, you’ve already got experience with them, and, quite frankly, no offence on them, but someone who’s _totally_ good would help to remind them what they’re fighting for.”

“Besides,” Paige added, smiling over at her brother-in-law, “look at it this way; things go wrong, they’ll be able to call us for assistance.”

Leo sighed, smiled slightly, and turned back to look at the Coven.

“I’m in,” he said, as he stuck out one hand in front of him. Constantine laid his own hand on top of Leo’s, followed by the other members of the Coven. As Hellboy laid his non-stone left hand on top of the others, even though nobody present noticed it, a burst of magical energy emitted from the seven people standing there, blazing upwards into the higher dimensions like a beacon of hope…

* * *

  
Up in a higher plain of reality, where not even the Elders were fully aware of what took place, two people, a dark-haired man and a curly-haired brunette, looked down at the sight before them, and smiled.

“They did it…” the woman chuckled to herself, as she glanced over at her new acquaintance. “I can hardly believe it… but they pulled it off.”

“Yeah, I know,” the man replied, smiling affectionately down at the seven figures before he glanced over at the woman. “So… can I get down there soon? I mean, from what you’ve said, they _are_ going to need my help…”

The woman shook her head.

“No, not yet,” she said, apologetically looking at her new friend. “The time is not right… But soon. Very soon. I promise.”


End file.
